NASA is set to launch the world’s first mission devoted to studying rapidly spinning neutron stars, the densest objects in the universe.
The US space agency plans to launch the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, aboard SpaceX CRS-11, a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station, now rescheduled to be launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday.
The SpaceX cargo resupply mission was earlier scheduled for launch on Thursday. The launch was aborted due to bad weather.
About a week after its installation aboard the International Space Station as an external attached payload, this one-of-a-kind investigation will begin observing neutron stars – objects containing ultra-dense matter at the threshold of collapse into black holes, NASA said.
The mission will focus especially on pulsars , those neutron stars that appear to wink on and off because their spin sweeps beams of radiation past us, like a cosmic lighthouse.
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