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NICER

Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer

Active Mission

NASA’s NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) is an X-ray telescope that studies neutron stars, black holes, and other phenomena from its home aboard the International Space Station. NICER also demonstrated the use of galactic pulsars as navigational beacons for future deep-space exploration missions.

Type

Payload

NASA Lead

Goddard

launched

June 3, 2017

Wavelength

X-rays

Featured Story

Astronomers Catch Unprecedented Features at Brink of Active Black Hole

International teams of astronomers monitoring a supermassive black hole in the heart of a distant galaxy have detected features never…

Latest NICER News

Explore All NICER News

NICER Status Updates

NASA’s NICER Maps Debris From Recurring Cosmic Crashes

NASA Space Station Research Helps Power Moon Science

Astronomers Catch Unprecedented Features at Brink of Active Black Hole

Astronaut Set to Patch NASA’s X-ray Telescope Aboard Space Station

Featured Video

NASA’s NICER Probes the Squeezability of Neutron Stars

Matter in the hearts of neutron stars – dense remnants of exploded massive stars – takes the most extreme form we can measure. Thanks to data from NICER, scientists have discovered that this mysterious matter is less squeezable than some physicists predicted.

Other NICER News

Photograph of NICER on the space station.

Kyoto Univ.: NICER Reveals Origin of Stellar Iron Line

Artist's concept of a black hole with jets

Univ. Warwick: Cosmic Seesaws — Black Holes Eject Material Either as Winds or Jets

Artist's concept of a black hole called Ansky

ESA: From Boring to Bursting — A Giant Black Hole Awakens

NICER Images and Video

Download high-resolution files through NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio.

An astronaut takes a selfie with a telescope

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Galaxies

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