[music] Coming soon to the
International Space Station,
a multipurpose mission leveraging
X-ray technology to uncover
mysteries of the universe.
It's
nearly impossible to measure the
sizes of neutron stars directly.
They're only about the size of a city
and very far away.
They're very interesting in the sky to
to study.
It's matter at the cusp of
becoming a black hole.
NICER's 56 telescopes will
make observations, enabling scientists
to determine how rotating neutron
stars - also called
pulsars - are put together.
What we're really interested in doing with NICER
is understanding - um -
really what the size of a neutron
star is. Cause once we know the size of the
radius of a neutron star very precisely,
then we can put constraints on
the density at the core.
And once you have an idea of what the density is
at the core you can constrain nuclear theories that
describe how the particles at
the core of neutron stars interact with each other.
In addition to
probing neutron stars, the
two-in-one mission will advance GPS like
navigation of spacecraft
throughout the solar system and beyond.
The embedded Station
Explorer for X-ray Timing and
Navigation Technology, or SEXTANT,
uses NICER's observations
of pulsars to demonstrate this
potentially game-changing technology.
It's goal as a technology demonstration
as part of the NICER mission,
is to try to turn the "G" in GPS
into "Galactic."
We want to use pulsars - this particular
type of neutron star that spins
hundreds of times a second that emits this
atomic-like clock signal for us
to receive. And so we observe
multiple pulsars and stitch together a solution
by looking at those precision timing
signals from those pulsars to construct a
spacecraft orbit determination solution.
Both NICER and SEXTANT
benefit existing and future NASA
missions and will further
expand humankind's understanding and
exploration of the universe.
nasa.gov/nicer