News Archive / Tagged: NICER

• Astronomical history! First image of black hole captured

  Jason RhianApril 10th, 2019

  Black holes were known to exist but, until recently, no images of them had ever been captured. An international network of radio telescopes has changed all that.

• NICER and LISA could confirm or disprove predictions of general relativity

  Tomasz NowakowskiAugust 26th, 2017

  Two astrophysical missions, NICER and LISA, could soon change humanity's understanding of the universe. Scientists hope both instruments will help answer fundamental questions about the universe, testing many aspects of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

• Pulsar-based spacecraft navigation system one step closer to reality

  Tomasz NowakowskiAugust 15th, 2016

  Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars that emit electromagnetic radiation at regular intervals. They are often dubbed “lighthouses” of the universe as their emission is beamed, thus a pulse of radiation is seen only each time the beam sweeps across line-of-sight. A spacecraft navigation method based on X-ray signals emitted from pulsars, known as XNAV, has recently taken a leap forward thanks to a study conducted by UK scientists from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Leicester.