Astrophysicists are redrawing the textbook image of pulsars, the dense, whirling remains of exploded stars, thanks to NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), an X-ray telescope aboard the International Space Station. Using NICER data, scientists have obtained the first precise and dependable measurements of both a pulsar’s size and its mass, as well as the first-ever map of hot spots on its surface.
![](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/tmb/2019/nasasnicerde.gif)
Source:
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-nasa-nicer-best-ever-pulsar-surface.html