Tag Archive for 'NICER'

An artist’s depiction of the X-ray binary system 4U 1820-30 in the core of the globular cluster NGC 6624. Image credit: NASA.

NICER X-ray Telescope Discovers Fast-Spinning Neutron Star

Oct 29, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

A neutron star in the X-ray binary system 4U 1820-30 spins 716 times per second, making it one of the fastest-spinning objects ever observed, according...

An artist’s impression of a black hole X-ray binary. Image credit: Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias.

NICER Detects Echoes from Eight Black Hole X-Ray Binaries

May 2, 2022 by News Staff

As a stellar-mass black hole pulls in gas and dust from an orbiting star, it can give off spectacular bursts of X-rays that bounce and echo off the inspiraling...

X-ray spots on the surface of the magnetar SGR 1830-0645. Image credit: Younes et al., doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac4700.

NICER Observes Merger of X-Ray Spots on Distant Magnetar

Mar 9, 2022 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), astronomers have observed the merging of multimillion-degree X-ray spots on the surface...

This is a mosaic image, one of the largest ever taken by Hubble of the Crab Nebula, a 6-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star’s supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Hester / A. Loll, Arizona State University.

Study: Crab Pulsar’s X-rays Brighter during ‘Giant Radio Pulses’

Apr 9, 2021 by News Staff

Located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus, the Crab Nebula and its pulsar formed in a supernova whose light reached Earth in July 1054;...

This two-panel illustration shows a black hole surrounded by a disk of gas, before and after the disk is partially dispersed. In the left panel, the ball of white light above the black hole is the black hole corona, a collection of ultra-hot gas particles that forms as gas from the disk falls into the black hole. The streak of debris falling toward the disk is what remains of a star that was torn apart by the black hole’s gravity. The right panel shows the black hole after the debris from the star has dispersed some of the gas in the disk, causing the corona to disappear. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Colliding Star Destroys Supermassive Black Hole’s Corona in Distant Galaxy

Jul 17, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has watched as an X-ray corona of a supermassive black hole in the active galactic nucleus 1ES 1927+654 was abruptly...

Astronomers Measure Size and Mass of Nearby Pulsar, Create Map of Its Surface Hot Spots

Dec 17, 2019 by News Staff

Using the X-ray data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), astronomers have produced a map of hot spots on the surface of a...

A thermonuclear blast on a pulsar called SAX J1808.4-3658 resulted in the brightest burst of X-rays seen to date by NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NICER Detects Thermonuclear Burst from X-Ray Pulsar

Nov 8, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) has detected an extremely energetic explosion called a Type I X-ray burst from SAX J1808.4-3658,...

In this illustration, MAXI J1820+070 pulls material off a neighboring star and into an accretion disk; above the disk is a region of subatomic particles called the corona. Image credit: Aurore Simonnet / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NICER Observes ‘X-Ray Echoes’ of Nearby Stellar-Mass Black Hole

Feb 1, 2019 by News Staff

Astrophysicists using NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) have detected X-rays from a stellar-mass black hole called MAXI J1820+070...

This artist’s impression depicts IGR J17062–6143. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer Finds Pulsar in Ultracompact Orbit

May 11, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) have found evidence that an accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar called IGR...

This illustration shows NASA’s NICER mission at work aboard the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA Engineers Demonstrate Pulsar-Based Navigation in Space

Jan 16, 2018 by News Staff

NASA engineers have successfully demonstrated X-ray navigation in space — a capability that could revolutionize NASA’s ability in the future to...