NICER / ISS Science Nugget for July 11, 2019NICER's first neutron star radius measurement to be submitted soonSubmission for publication is imminent (within 7-10 days) of two papers that represent NICER's first measurement of a neutron star radius and the first-ever precision measurement of mass and radius together for the same object — PSR J0030+0451, a pulsar with a 4.9 millisecond rotation period at a distance of 320 parsecs (approximately 1,000 light-years). The two manuscripts were prepared by members of the NICER Science Team carrying out independent analyses of the same data, and they produce consistent results despite differences in the assumptions they make in modeling the star's surface emission properties. Additional "firsts" for these papers include estimating the mass of a solitary (i.e., not in a binary system) neutron star, and demonstrating unambiguously that its magnetic-field geometry is not that of a simple dipole. Shown in the figure is an energy spectrum of more than 1.9 Msec of NICER data acquired for PSR J0030+0451 that were used for these first NICER Equation of State (EOS) results.
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