Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

NICER, the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, is an X-ray telescope that was installed on the International Space Station in 2017. Its mission is to study the nature of the densest matter in the Universe, found in the cores of neutron stars. NICER uses Pulse Profile Modeling, a technique that exploits relativistic effects on X-rays emitted from the hot magnetic polar caps of millisecond pulsars. The technique also lets us map the hot emitting regions, which form as magnetospheric particles slam into the stellar surface. I will present NICER's current results and ongoing analysis, and discuss the implications for our understanding of ultradense matter, pulsar emission, and stellar magnetic fields.