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ASTRONAUTICS
5
For the last few months,
NASA has been running a
new mission that promises
to answer a question that
has been nagging us for
decades: ‘How large is a
neutron star?’. The instru-
ments that researchers had
available before now only
provided partial, approxi-
mate answers, but with the
help of the NICER X-ray
telescope, we will finally
get an exact answer.
I
n late November 50 years ago,
Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony
Hewish discovered a quite un-
usual source in the sky that emitted
a very fast pulsating radio signal
with a surprising frequency. After
ruling out earthly origins for it, and
not being able to show immediately
that it was a natural phenomenon,
the two researchers gave the source
a joking nickname, LGM-1, for ‘little
green men’, with which at that time
the possible appearance of extrater-
restrial hypotheticals was pointed
out. This source later became part
of history as the first pulsar
discovered.
I
n the
background,
the International
Space Station with
the small NICER hook-
ed up to the ExPRESS
Logistics Carrier. [NASA]