Find out how to watch the live launch of Japan’s XRISM mission.
This weekend, space fans will be able to watch the launch of the XRISM mission, a new spacecraft that will observe the hottest, most chaotic known places in the Universe.
XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) is scheduled to launch from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on Saturday 26 August at 20:30 EDT (27 August 00:15 UTC / 01:15 BST), which is 09:30, Tokyo time.
The mission is a joint venture between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA, with participation from the European Space Agency (ESA).
JAXA is livestreaming the event, which you can watch at the bottom of this article.
What will XRISM do?
“X-ray astronomy enables us to study the most energetic phenomena in the Universe,” says Matteo Guainazzi, ESA project scientist for XRISM.
“It holds the key to answering important questions in modern astrophysics
“How the largest structures in the Universe evolve, how the matter we are ultimately composed of was distributed through the cosmos.
“And how galaxies are shaped by massive black holes at their centres.”
“With current instruments, we’re only capable of seeing these fingerprints in a comparatively blurry way,” says Brian Williams, NASA’s XRISM project scientist.
“Resolve will effectively give X-ray astrophysics a spectrometer with a magnifying glass.”
XRISM is expected to shed light on exploding stars (supernovae), black holes and their host galaxies, and galaxy clusters.
You can find out more about the science behind the spacecraft in our guide to the XRISM mission.
And you can watch the livestream of the XRISM launch below.
What the XRISM launch live
Find out more via the JAXA XRISM webpage.