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NASA’s IMAP Mission Captures ‘First Light,’ Looks Back at Earth

All 10 instruments aboard NASA’s newly launched IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) mission have successfully recorded their first measurements in space. With these “first light” observations, the spacecraft is now collecting preliminary science data as it journeys to its observational post at Lagrange point 1 (L1), about 1 million miles from Earth toward the Sun.

As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will chart the boundaries of the heliosphere — a huge bubble created by the Sun’s wind that encapsulates our entire solar system — and study how the heliosphere interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond.

To map the heliosphere’s boundaries, IMAP is equipped with three instruments that measure energetic neutral atoms: IMAP-Lo, IMAP-Hi, and IMAP-Ultra. These uncharged particles, called ENAs for short, are cosmic messengers formed at the heliosphere’s edge that allow scientists to study the boundary region and its variability from afar.

An animated GIF shows a large oval that is initially filled with large rectangular pixels of different colors from dark blue, light blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and pink. The pixels change color rapidly. The oval then goes from filled to only having two large vertical bands of colored pixels and then two thinner vertical bands of pixels, with the rest of the oval becoming gray, with no data. At the center of the oval a white dot is labeled "Nose." An orange, circular outline extends from the top of the oval below the Nose. A second orange curve stretches across the oval, starting at the upper left, curving down toward the bottom center of the oval, and then bends back up to the upper right edge of the oval.
These partial maps of the heliosphere’s boundaries were compiled from first-light data from the IMAP-Hi, IMAP-Lo, and IMAP-Ultra instruments. These initial looks offer a first glimpse at the detail NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) will be able to capture. The warmer colors show regions with more energetic neutral atoms (ENAs).
NASA

With all of IMAP’s instruments up and running, the mission has nearly completed its commissioning stage and will arrive at L1 in early January. The mission is now working to complete the final commissioning steps and instrument calibration with the goal of being ready to take operational science data starting Saturday, Feb. 1, 2026.

Learn more and see all the first-light observations here:

NASA’s IMAP Mission Captures ‘First Light,’ Looks Back at Earth 

By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.