NICER Science Nuggets


Each week, the NICER team summarizes important scientific activities or results utilizing data from the NICER mission.

Here are past Science Nuggets listed by topic. A chronological index is also available.


Accreting Black Hole Systems:

Accreting Neutron Star Systems:

Other Accreting Systems:

Rotation-powered Pulsars:

Magnetars & Soft Gamma Repeaters:

  • 24 October 2024:Do X-rays accompany fast radio bursts?
  • 5 September 2024: A magnetar bursting into prominence
  • 15 February 2024: A Magnetar Tantrum Yields Clues to Enigmatic Radio Signals
  • 22 June 2023: Taking a Magnetar's Pulse
  • 23 February 2023: Radio Silence from a Magnetar During an X-ray Outburst
  • 24 November 2022: A new link between neutron star spin and emission events
  • 20 October 2022: Observing an Outburst from the Fast Radio Burst source SGR 1935+2154 with NICER
  • 21 April 2022: An X-ray outburst from a radio-loud magnetar after 13 years of quiescence
  • 30 December 2021: A new X-ray phenomenon revealed in a magnetar through near-daily NICER observations
  • 11 November 2021: NICER Hones In On the Origin of Short Bursts from Magnetars
  • 16 September 2021: NICER Monitoring of a New Magnetar Explores its Unusually Long-Lived Activity
  • 10 June 2021: A new magnetar, Swift J1555.2-5402, confirmed and monitored with NICER
  • 12 November 2020: NICER confirmation of the magnetar nature of SGR 1830-0645: Spindown, spectra, and short bursts
  • 05 November 2020: FR/GR/B
  • 15 October 2020: Taking the Pulse of a Magnetar
  • 10 September 2020: A NICER View of the 2020 outburst of PSR J1846-0258
  • 03 September 2020: NICER Observations of Swift J1818.0-1607: a Missing Link between Magnetars and Rotation-Powered
  • 07 May 2020: NICER detection of the burst forest from the magnetar SGR 1935+2154
  • 26 March 2020: A new magnetar, Swift J1818.0-1607, offers clues to neutron star evolution
  • 15 February 2019: A new outburst from magnetar XTE J1810-197
  • 19 October 2018: Rapid follow-up of bright, short bursts from SGR 1806-20
  • 01 March 2018: NICER detects changes in magnetar 1E 1048.9-5937

Other stars & Solar System Bodies:

Follow-up of New Transients:

  • 9 May 2024: The more the merrier
  • 18 April 2024: A flash triggers a multiwavelength hunt
  • 25 May 2023: A nearby supernova
  • 23 March 2023: With a Swift assist, MAXI and NICER uncover a new candidate black-hole
  • 01 December 2022: An exceptional black-hole jet revealed in a multi-wavelength view of a star's destruction
  • 17 November 2022: Highly variable X-ray emission from a doomed star
  • 10 November 2022: NICER Identifies an X-ray Transient
  • 27 October 2022: Formation of an X-ray "corona" around a supermassive black hole 3 years after it destroyed a star
  • 13 October 2022: OHMAN Alerts NICER to an Unprecedented Celestial Explosion
  • 16 Jun 2022: NICER discovers millisecond pulsations from the new transient MAXI J1816-195
  • 12 May 2022: NICER Disentangles Adjacent X-ray Emitters
  • 24 February 2022: A Relativistic Jet from a Shredded Star 7 Billion Light Years Away
  • 27 January 2022: NICER homes in on a new MAXI source discovery
  • 20 January 2022: Last Gasp of an Unfortunate Star?
  • 02 September 2021: NICER & Friends Uncover a Pulsar Orbit
  • 22 July 2021: NICER Glimpses a Newborn Compact Object 200 million Light Years Away
  • 27 May 2021: Successful Application of NICER's New Sky Scanning Capability
  • 06 May 2021: X-ray quasi-periodic eruptions from two previously quiescent galaxies
  • 29 April 2021: NICER Discovers Pulsations from MAXI J0903-531
  • 11 March 2021: A NICER First Look at the New X-ray Transient IGR J17533-2928
  • 24 December 2020: A star ripped apart?
  • 13 August 2020: A Pulsar in Transition?
  • 16 July 2020: NICER Observations of Stellar Death by Black Hole
  • 07 November 2019: MAXI points NICER to a new brightening source
  • 05 September 2019: NICER makes its first detection of a GRB afterglow
  • 01 August 2019: EXO 1846-031 reawakens after 34-year silence
  • 30 May 2019: NICER sees X-rays from star in another galaxy getting ripped apart
  • 18 April 2019: NICER Observations of a Possible SN 1a: AT2019daj
  • 04 April 2019: Follow-up of MAXI triggers provides new insight into transient events
  • 31 January 2019: NICER follows up on a bonanza of MAXI-discovered Galactic black hole systems
  • 17 January 2019: Combined X-ray data uncovers a new class of transient AGN flares
  • 15 November 2018: Observations of new X-ray transient show intense flaring episodes
  • 08 November 2018: Unexplained X-ray transient event in active galaxy observed by NICER
  • 24 May 2018: Target of Opportunity observations of new transient ASASSN-18el
  • 22 March 2018: Quasi-periodic oscillation detected in new transient MAXI 1820+070
  • 29 September 2017: Periodic variations in a MAXI black hole candidate

XTI Instrumental Studies:

SEXTANT Results:

NICER Mission: