China and Europe create highly sensitive space telescope to observe cosmic explosions

[CarderPlanet]

When science and technology come together, magic happens in space.

Scientists from China have joined forces with colleagues from Europe to create a unique space telescope that will track the most powerful explosions in the universe. This ambitious project, dubbed "Polar-2", involves specialists from Switzerland, Poland, Germany and, of course, China. The main mission of the project is to install a telescope on the Tiangong space station in China by 2025.

Gamma-ray bursts: The Mystery of the Universe​

The main task of the Polar-2 mission is to monitor gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). These phenomena are short and intense bursts of gamma radiation that result from some of the most powerful cosmic explosions since the Big Bang. Despite their discovery more than 50 years ago, scientists still cannot fully understand their nature. Nicolas Produy, a physicist at the University of Geneva, at the International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan, suggested that GRBs may arise from the birth of a black hole or the collision of dense cores of fallen stars.

Polar-2: a new stage in space exploration​

The Polar-2 mission is a continuation of the successful previous mission, in which scientists from Switzerland, China and Poland studied gamma-ray bursts. The main instrument of the previous mission was installed at the Tiangong-2 space laboratory and was designed to measure the rotation angle of light particles detected by the gamma detector. The new Polar-2 telescope, thanks to the latest technological advances, will be four times larger and ten times more sensitive than its predecessor.