X-Calibur: Piercing the veil of the high-energy universe

On December 29, 2018, X-Calibur was launched from McMurdo in Antarctica for a stratospheric balloon flight. The flight was short, terminating on January 1, 2019, but it was scientifically successful. The observations caught the accreting pulsar GX 301-2 close to apastron at elevated flux levels. In this talk, I will explain the background of x-ray polarimetry and the operational principles of X-Calibur, as well as some scientific results from the flight.

Oh, I guess there will be some pictures of penguins, too.