Markarian 421

About Markarian 421:

• It is a supermassive black hole firing a jet of high-energy particles aimed directly at Earth.
• It is about 400 million light-years away from the earth
• It is located in the constellation Ursa Major.

Characteristics of supermassive black hole

• They have a mass greater than about 50,000 times the mass of our sun.
• These black holes are far too large to have formed from the gravitational collapse of a single star.
• These are always found at the centre of a galaxy and almost all galaxies have a supermassive black hole at its centre. 

Key facts about the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)

• It is an international collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency.
• It studies the most extreme and mysterious objects in the universe – supernova remnants, supermassive black holes, and dozens of other high-energy objects.
• It is the first satellite dedicated to measuring polarized X-rays from objects, such as neutron stars and supermassive black holes, to reveal previously hidden details of the universe.