That’s all we have time to answer now! Thanks for all your pulsar related questions. You can stay up-to-date on the mission here: https://www.nasa.gov/nicer. And learn more technical information about NICER here: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/nicer/. Pulsars are rotating “lighthouse” neutron stars that began their lives as stars between about seven and 20 times the mass of our sun. They spin hundreds of times per second, faster than the blades of a household blender and they possess enormously strong magnetic fields, trillions of times stronger than Earth’s. For the first time, NASA has a mission to study pulsars using X-ray technology to uncover mysteries of the cosmos while paving the way for future space exploration. This two-in-one mission is called NICER-SEXTANT and it’s currently aboard the International Space Station. NICER (the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) uses 56 telescopes to study the structure, dynamics and energetics of these spinning neutron stars. What makes up their cores is not known, but if these super-dense objects were compressed much further they’d collapse into black holes. SEXTANT (the Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology) uses NICER’s observations to test - for the first time in space – technology that uses pulsars to create a GPS-like system. This technology could support spacecraft navigation throughout the solar system, enabling deep-space exploration in the future. More background: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-continues-to-study-pulsars-50-years-after-their-chance-discovery Read about five famous pulsars from the past 50 years: https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/163637443034/five-famous-pulsars-from-the-past-50-years ­­­­ We are: · Dr. Keith Gendreau – NICER Principal Investigator, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian – NICER Science Lead, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Craig Markwardt – NICER Calibration Lead & Neutron Star Scientist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Luke Winternitz – SEXTANT Systems Architect, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Jason Mitchell – SEXTANT Project Manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Rita Sambruna – NICER Program Scientist, NASA Headquarters · Dr. Stefan Immler – NICER Deputy Program Scientist, NASA Headquarters · Dr. Slavko Bogdanov – Pulsar/Neutron star Scientist, Columbia University Communications Support: · Aries Keck – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Clare Skelly – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Claire Saravia – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Barb Mattson – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Sara Mitchell – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Don’t forget to follow the NICER mission at www.nasa.gov/nicer and @NASAGoddard on Twitter and Facebook!

We’re finding planets around other stars! So far we have discovered thousands of these exoplanets with missions like Kepler and K2. Today we’re at Kennedy Space Center eagerly awaiting the launch of NASA’s newest planet hunter. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS mission, will search nearly the entire sky looking for tiny dips in the light from Earth’s closest neighborhood stars that may indicate planets passing in front of the stars. TESS will make a catalog of thousands of worlds for us to study in more detail with future missions like the James Webb Space Telescope. TESS will fly in an orbit that completes two circuits around the Earth for every orbit of the Moon. This special orbit will allow TESS’s cameras to monitor each patch of sky for nearly a month at a time. We are: Natalia Guerrero: I’m a researcher in the TESS Science Office at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. I measured the TESS camera performance and will lead the team identifying exoplanets and other interesting astrophysical phenomena in the TESS data for further observation by other telescopes. Elisa V. Quintana: I’m an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where I work on the TESS and WFIRST missions. I study exoplanets in extreme environments and am looking forward to finding new ones with TESS. Stephen Rinehart: I’m the project scientist for the TESS mission. I help make sure that the mission will be able to do the great science that was proposed, and I’m excited about all the great science that astronomers will be able to do with data from TESS! And, I enjoy giving snarky answers to questions on reddit. Diana Dragomir: I’m an astronomer at MIT. I study planets around other stars (exoplanets), especially those smaller than Neptune. My research uses data from many telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer, the Canadian MOST space telescope and the Las Cumbres Observatory network. Sam Quinn: I’m an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I hunt for exoplanets and use their observed properties to study how they form, evolve, and migrate (yes, migrate!). My role in the TESS Science Office is to help organize follow-up observations of TESS planets with ground-based telescopes to measure their masses and characterize their host stars. Learn more about TESS at www.nasa.gov/tess Follow us on @NASA_TESS to stay updated We are now live! Thank you all for your questions. We’ve had a great time answering them, however we’re going to log out now.