NICER (the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) uses an array of X-ray telescopes to get detailed images of neutron stars as they rotate.

The NICER telescope developed a light leak in May 2023 when several thin thermal shields were damaged and let in sunlight that made the telescope useless during daylight hours.

The phenomenon was discovered thanks to NASA's Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), mounted on the International Space Station, which recorded 15 explosions between 2017 and 2022.

Though young neutron stars can have temperatures in the millions of degrees in their interior, by one important energetic measure neutrons are considered “cold.” ...

The cross-section of a neutron star showing the exotic matter that may compose the interior of these dead stars. (Image credit: Jyrki Hokkanen/CSC) Magnetars, like all neutron stars , owe their ...

The Neutron-star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), which NASA recently selected as its next Explorer Mission of Opportunity, will gather scientific data revealing the physics of the densest ma… ...

These neutron stars are extraordinarily dense — like compressing Mount Everest into a teaspoon, said NICER astrophysicist Zaven Arzoumanian of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

A neutron star with an identity crisis. NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Telescope discovered the 31st magnetar, Swift J1818.01607 or J1818 for short, in March 2020.

Neutron stars have a mass greater than our Sun, but are only about 20 kilometers (12 miles) wide. They are so dense that their magnetic fields are incredibly strong.

Neutron stars are the universe's most extreme stars, born when massive stars die and explode. These stars are packed with material so dense that if a teaspoon of it made its way to Earth, it would ...

Thus, this neutron star spins faster than most centrifuges, blenders and gas-powered engines. There are still things that spin even faster. Researchers at Purdue University once created an object ...

A dense, collapsed star spinning 707 times per second—making it one of the fastest spinning neutron stars in the Milky Way galaxy—has shredded and consumed nearly the entire mass of its ...