The Neutron Star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) is a NASA telescope on the International Space Station, designed and dedicated to the study of the extraordinary gravitational, electromagnetic, and nuclear physics environments embodied by neutron stars, exploring the exotic states of matter where density and pressure are higher than in atomic nuclei. As part of NASA’s Explorer program, NICER enabled rotation-resolved spectroscopy of the thermal and non-thermal emissions of neutron stars in the soft X-ray (0.2–12 keV) band with unprecedented sensitivity, probing interior structure, the origins of dynamic phenomena, and the mechanisms that underlie the most powerful cosmic particle accelerators known. NICER achieved these goals by deploying, following the launch, and activation of X-ray timing and spectroscopy instruments. NICER was selected by NASA to proceed to formulation phase in April 2013.

What does the NICER telescope do?

NASA’s NICER is an X-ray observatory 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

When did the NICER telescope launch?

Following the loss of SpaceX CRS-7 in June 2015, which delayed future missions by several months, NICER was finally launched on 3 June 2017, with the SpaceX CRS-11 ISS resupply mission aboard a Falcon 9 v1

What is the effective area of NICER?

In order to accomplish this prime science, NICER was designed with the following performance characteristics: Large effective area: ~1900 cm² at 1.5 keV. Broad Bandpass: 0.2 < E < 12.0 keV. Absolute timing precision of < 300 ns

Who created NICER?

The Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER): design and development. Gendreau, Keith C. Adkins, Phillip W. Albert, Cheryl L

How big is the NICER telescope?

NICER is about the size of a washing machine. The sunshades of its X-ray concentrators are visible as an array of circular features

Mission typeNeutron starastrophysicsOperatorNASA / GSFC / MITWebsitehttps://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/nicer/Mission duration18 months (planned)
6 years, 11 months and 15 days (in progress)

Start of missionLaunch date3 June 2017, 21:07:38 UTC. RocketFalcon 9 Full Thrust, B1035.1Launch siteKennedy Space Center, LC-39AContractorSpaceX

Science instrument

NICER’s primary science instrument, called the X-ray Timing Instrument (XTI), is an array of 56 X-ray photon detectors. These detectors record the energies of the collected photons as well as with their time of arrival. A Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver enables accurate timing and positioning measurements. X-ray photons can be time-tagged with a precision of less than 300 ns. In August 2022 a fast X-ray follow-up observation program was started with the MAXI instrument named “OHMAN (On-orbit Hookup of MAXI and NICER)” to detect sudden bursts in X-ray phenomena.

During each ISS orbit, NICER will observe two to four targets. Gimbaling and a star tracker allow NICER to track specific targets while collecting science data. In order to achieve its science objectives, NICER will take over 15 million seconds of exposures over an 18-month period

NASA 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. Now, thanks to data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station, scientists have discovered that this mysterious matter is less squeezable than some physicists predicted

The finding is based on NICER’s observations of PSR J0740+6620 (J0740 for short), the most massive known neutron star, which lies over 3,600 light-years away in the northern constellation Camelopardalis. J0740 is in a binary star system with a white dwarf, the cooling remnant of a Sun-like star, and rotates 346 times per second. Previous observations place the neutron star’s mass at about 2.1 times the Sun’s.

“We’re surrounded by normal matter, the stuff of our everyday experience, but there’s much we don’t know about how matter behaves, and how it is transformed, under extreme conditions,” said Zaven Arzoumanian, the NICER science lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “By measuring the sizes and masses of neutron stars with NICER, we are exploring matter on the verge of imploding into a black hole. Once that happens, we can no longer study matter because it’s hidden by the black hole’s event horizon.”

A nicer view of a bursting X-ray binary

When a neutron star snares material from a stellar companion, we see a flash of X-rays called an X-ray burst. What can an analysis of 51 bursts from a single source tell us about the physics behind these events?

One of our best tools for studying these bursts is the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), which has monitored X-rays from its vantage point on the International Space Station since 2017. Among NICER’s many targets is the highly active binary 4U 1636–536, which was discovered just over 50 years ago. Researchers have cataloged hundreds of X-ray bursts from 4U 1636–536, finding that it averages one burst every four hours

Nicer telescope interesting facts

Here are some interesting facts about NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope:

• NICER is an X-ray observatory that studies black holes, neutron stars, and other phenomena from the International Space Station. 
• NICER’s X-ray Timing Instrument (XTI) has 56 X-ray “concentrator” optics (XRC) and silicon drift detector (SDD) pairs. 
• Each XRC collects X-rays from a 30 arcmin2 region of the sky and focuses them onto an SDD. 
• The SDD detects individual photons and records their energies and detection times. 
• NICER is the first mission designed to study neutron stars, and it has fast timing, spectroscopy, and sensitivity to faint X-ray emissions. 
• NICER has shown that galactic pulsars can be used as navigational beacons for deep-space exploration missions. 
• NICER is located near the station’s inner starboard solar panels. 
• NICER collects data on cosmic phenomena like neutron star pulses and black hole “light echoes”. 
• NICER has a useful energy band of 0.2 < E < 12 keV. 

NASA’s NICER is an X-ray observatory 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

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