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NICER, the interior of the neutron star, captured the time-lapse image by providing accurate measurements of the remains of neutron stars, which are dead stars that have already exploded. The image shows the Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant of about 90 light-years and that would be between 5,000 and 8,000 years old. Keith Gendreau of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland said: "We are gradually building a new X-ray image of all the sky, and it is possible that NICER's night sweeps uncover previously unknown sources."
The combined measures to create the image will finally allow physicists to solve the mystery of the form of matter existing in their incredibly compressed nuclei.
Pulsars, rapidly rotating neutron stars that seem to emit bright light, are among NICER's usual targets.
Other frequently visited pulsars are studied as part of the NXTER Station Explorer experiment for X-ray synchronization and navigation technology (SEXTANT).
This experiment, which uses the precise synchronization of pulsar X-ray pulses to autonomously determine the position and velocity of NICER in space, is essentially a galactic GPS system.
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Once fully developed, this technology will enable spacecraft to navigate the solar system and beyond.
This image of the entire sky shows 22 months of X-ray data recorded by Neutron's Neutron's Inside Composition Explorer (NICER) payload aboard the International Space Station.
NICER acts as a detector of cosmic sources coming from the International Space Station, which turns around the Earth every 93 minutes.
This chart of the sky represents the first 22 months of NICER's work, taking data from his nocturnal observations.
Bows follow X-rays and energy particle strikes.
The most used routes followed by NICER reveal the brightest and most prominent arches.
One of the objectives of NICER is to determine the size of neutron stars, which are the remains of dense stars.
Neutron stars are the smallest in the universe, with a diameter comparable to the size of a city like Chicago or Atlanta.
These are the supernova remnants.
But they are incredibly dense, with masses bigger than our sun.
So, think of the sun, compressed in a big city.
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