Nearly 50 years after British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell discovered the existence of rapidly spinning neutron stars, NASA will launch the world's first mission devoted to studying these unusual objects. The agency also will use the same platform to carry out the world's first demonstration of X-ray navigation in space. The agency plans to launch the two-in-one Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, aboard SpaceX CRS-11, a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station to be launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. Read more
Potential New NASA Mission Would Reveal the Hearts of Undead Stars
Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian is Deputy Principal Investigator on a proposed mission called the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) that would unveil the dark heart of a neutron star.
"We have no way of creating neutron star interiors on Earth, so what happens to matter under such incredible pressure is a mystery - there are many theories about how it behaves. The closest we come to simulating these conditions is in particle accelerators that smash atoms together at almost the speed of light. However, these collisions are not an exact substitute - they only last a split second, and they generate temperatures that are much higher than what's inside neutron stars."