A team including Marcus Lower (Swinburne University of Technology) has reported in Nature what may be the first observational sign of vacuum birefringence, a quantum effect predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago in which light bends in empty space. Using the magnetar 1E 1547.0–5408 observed with IXPE, NICER, and the Parkes radio telescope, they found X-rays polarized and locked to the star's magnetic field exactly as quantum electrodynamics predicts — though the result still awaits confirmation.
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 reports in Nature what may be the first detection of vacuum birefringence — the bending of light in empty space predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago. Using the magnetar 1E 1547.0–5408 observed with NASA's IXPE, NICER, and CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope, the team found highly polarized X-rays locked to the star's ultra-strong magnetic field, exactly as quantum electrodynamics predicts.){kind=link}