India launches its 1st satellite to study black holes

India launched its first ever satellite to study black holes on Monday to help deepen the country’s space exploration efforts, Al Arabiya reported.

The X-ray Polarimeter Satellite, was set in motion in an orbit of 350 kilometers from an island near India’s main spaceport of Sriharikota, said S. Somanath, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation.

The satellite weighs around 470 kilograms and is set to help in the research on X-rays emanating from around 50 celestial objects.

It does so by using two payloads built by ISRO and a Bengaluru-based research institute.

In 2021, NASA launched a similar mission, Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, to try and find answers to a number of questions regarding the black holes.

These include questions such as why black holes spin? and to also build on the findings of Chandra X-ray Observatory, which blasted off more than two decades ago.

India has contributed a lot to the field of space exploration, being the first country ever to land on the moon’s south pole in August.