NASA Oct. 11, 2017 RELEASE 17-24
The public is invited to a free talk called "The Star That Ate Manhattan: Studying Neutron Stars from the International Space Station," with Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian in the Pickford Theater, third floor, Madison Building, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Oct. 17 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT.
Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian is a research astrophysicist and the deputy principal investigator for the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. He will describe NASA's NICER mission, an International Space Station payload devoted to studying neutron stars — the physics governing their interiors, their emissions, and their evolution.
"Neutron stars crush more mass than the Sun into a ball about as wide as Manhattan Island in New York," said Arzoumanian, "And they can rotate as fast as the blade of a kitchen blender. Neutron stars are the strongest magnets known, emit a wide range of light across the electromagnetic spectrum, and are the densest objects in the universe we can observe directly. Many are observed as ‘pulsars,’ appearing to flash regularly as their spin sweeps beams of light across our skies."
Launched June 3, 2017, on an 18-month baseline mission, NICER will help scientists understand the nature of the densest stable form of matter located deep in the cores of neutron stars using X-ray measurements.
NICER will also perform the first demonstration of spacecraft navigation using pulsars as natural beacons.
More:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2017/nasa-scientist-to-discuss-the-star-that-ate-manhattan-at-library-of-congress-lecture
