India expands space programme with launch of black hole satellite
India began the new year with the launch of a satellite to study black holes as part of the country’s space programme.
Its X-ray Polarimeter Satellite, or XPoSat, blasted off from a launch site on Sriharikota, an island in the Bay of Bengal, at 9.10am yesterday.
The satellite is designed to investigate black holes and neutron stars.
“Lift-off normal. XPoSat is launched successfully,” the Indian Space Research Organisation said on social media.
The rocket took off with more than 10 experiments on board.
It placed the satellite “precisely into the intended orbit of 650km, with six-degree inclination”, Isro said.
A black hole is an area in space that has immense gravity, ensuring that nothing – not even light – can escape from it, Nasa has said.
The phenomena are formed from the remnants of large stars that collapse in a supernova explosion.
Nasa said there were two types of black holes – stellar mass, which are between five and 10 times the Sun’s mass – and supermassive, which are 100,000 to billions of times the Sun’s mass.
Black holes have fascinated scientists since their existence was predicted by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity, developed between 1905 and 1915.
About $30 million was spent building XPoSat, which authorities said would “study the dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions and radiation from near black holes”.
The mission is expected to last for more than five years.
Its launch yesterday makes India only the second country to send a satellite into space to study black holes.
The US began its mission, called Nasa IXPE, in 2021.
India said XPoSat would be the first scientific satellite to “research polarisation measurements of X-ray emissions” from objects in space.
Last year, India sent a spacecraft to the south pole of the Moon and launched Aditya-L1, India’s first solar mission.
It plans to send its first astronaut to the Moon by 2040.
About $30 million was spent building XPoSat, with the satellite’s mission expected to last for more than five years