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By NASA
6 min read
NASA’s IMAP Mission to Study Boundaries of Our Home in Space
Summary
NASA’s new Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, will launch no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23 to study the heliosphere, a giant shield created by the Sun. The mission will chart the heliosphere’s boundaries to help us better understand the protection it offers life on Earth and how it changes with the Sun’s activity. The IMAP mission will also provide near real-time measurements of the solar wind, data that can be used to improve models predicting the impacts of space weather ranging from power-line disruptions to loss of satellites, to the health of voyaging astronauts. Space is a dangerous place — one that NASA continues to explore for the benefit of all. It’s filled with radiation and high-energy particles that can damage DNA and circuit boards alike. Yet life endures in our solar system in part because of the heliosphere, a giant bubble created by the Sun that extends far beyond Neptune’s orbit.
With NASA’s new Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, launching no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23, humanity is set to get a better look at the heliosphere than ever before. The mission will chart the boundaries of the heliosphere to help us better understand the protection it offers and how it changes with the Sun’s activity. The IMAP mission will also provide near real-time measurements of space weather conditions essential for the Artemis campaign and deep space travel.
“With IMAP, we’ll push forward the boundaries of knowledge and understanding of our place not only in the solar system, but our place in the galaxy as a whole,” said Patrick Koehn, IMAP program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “As humanity expands and explores beyond Earth, missions like IMAP will add new pieces of the space weather puzzle that fills the space between Parker Solar Probe at the Sun and the Voyagers beyond the heliopause.”
Download this video from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
Domain of Sun
The heliosphere is created by the constant outflow of material and magnetic fields from the Sun called the solar wind. As the solar system moves through the Milky Way, the solar wind’s interaction with interstellar material carves out the bubble of the heliosphere. Studying the heliosphere helps scientists understand our home in space and how it came to be habitable.
As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will map the boundary of our heliosphere and study how the heliosphere interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond. It will chart the vast range of particles, dust, ultraviolet light, and magnetic fields in interplanetary space, to investigate the energization of charged particles from the Sun and their interaction with interstellar space.
The IMAP mission builds on NASA’s Voyager and IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) missions. In 2012 and 2018, the twin Voyager spacecraft became the first human-made objects to cross the heliosphere’s boundary and send back measurements from interstellar space. It gave scientists a snapshot of what the boundary looked like and where it was in two specific locations. While IBEX has been mapping the heliosphere, it has left many questions unanswered. With 30 times higher resolution and faster imaging, IMAP will help fill in the unknowns about the heliosphere.
Energetic neutral atoms: atomic messengers from our heliosphere’s edge
Of IMAP’s 10 instruments, three will investigate the boundaries of the heliosphere by collecting energetic neutral atoms, or ENAs. Many ENAs originate as positively charged particles released by the Sun but after racing across the solar system, these particles run into particles in interstellar space. In this collision, some of those positively charged particles become neutral, and an energetic neutral atom is born. The interaction also redirects the new ENAs, and some ricochet back toward the Sun.
Charged particles are forced to follow magnetic field lines, but ENAs travel in a straight line, unaffected by the twists, turns, and turbulences in the magnetic fields that permeate space and shape the boundary of the heliosphere. This means scientists can track where these atomic messengers came from and study distant regions of space from afar. The IMAP mission will use the ENAs it collects near Earth to trace back their origins and construct maps of the boundaries of the heliosphere, which would otherwise be invisible from such a distance.
“With its comprehensive state-of-the-art suite of instruments, IMAP will advance our understanding of two fundamental questions of how particles are energized and transported throughout the heliosphere and how the heliosphere itself interacts with our galaxy,” said Shri Kanekal, IMAP mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The IMAP mission will study the heliosphere, our home in space. NASA/Princeton University/Patrick McPike Space weather: monitoring solar wind
The IMAP mission will also support near real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic solar particles, which can produce hazardous conditions in the space environment near Earth. From its location at Lagrange Point 1, about 1 million miles from Earth toward the Sun, IMAP will provide around a half hour’s warning of dangerous particles headed toward our planet. The mission’s data will help with the development of models that can predict the impacts of space weather ranging from power-line disruptions to loss of satellites.
“The IMAP mission will provide very important information for deep space travel, where astronauts will be directly exposed to the dangers of the solar wind,” said David McComas, IMAP principal investigator at Princeton University.
Cosmic dust: hints of the galaxy beyond
In addition to measuring ENAs and solar wind particles, IMAP will also make direct measurements of interstellar dust — clumps of particles originating outside of the solar system that are smaller than a grain of sand. This space dust is largely composed of rocky or carbon-rich grains leftover from the aftermath of supernova explosions.
The specific elemental composition of this space dust is a postmark for where it comes from in the galaxy. Studying cosmic dust can provide insight into the compositions of stars from far outside our solar system. It will also help scientists significantly advance what we know about these basic cosmic building materials and provide information on what the material between stars is made of.
David McComas leads the mission with an international team of 27 partner institutions. APL is managing the development phase and building the spacecraft, and it will operate the mission. IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes Program portfolio. The Explorers and Heliophysics Projects Division at NASA Goddard manages the STP Program for the agency’s Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the launch service for the mission.
By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Sep 17, 2025 Related Terms
Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Heliophysics Division IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) Missions NASA Centers & Facilities NASA Directorates Science & Research Science Mission Directorate Explore More
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4655-4660: Boxworks With a View
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image, showing the boxwork terrain in the foreground and the bright wind-sculpted material in the distance, on Sept. 12, 2025. Curiosity used its Right Navigation Camera on Sol 4657, or Martian day 4,657 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, at 00:50:58 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Earth planning date: Friday Sept. 12, 2025
Curiosity continues to image, analyze, and traverse through a landscape characterized by higher standing ridges separating low-lying depressions (hollows) — a surface known as the boxwork terrain on Mount Sharp. The science team is actively characterizing the texture, chemistry, and mineralogy of the ridges and hollows to understand how this surface formed and changed over time. I served as the Geology theme group “Keeper of the Plan” for Sols 4656-4657 where I compiled the details for each scientific activity that will be carried out by the rover. I selected the particular Navcam image accompanying this blog post because it not only shows the intriguing boxwork terrain beneath our wheels but also highlights the striking wind-sculpted yardangs on our exciting route ahead.
Our successful drive over the weekend set us up nicely to investigate the bedrock ridge in the workspace directly in front of the rover on Sol 4655. The target “Chango” was selected for closer inspection with the dust removal tool (DRT) and APXS and MAHLI instruments. ChemCam used its LIBS instrument to analyze the chemistry of a bedrock ridge at the “Quechua” target, and Mastcam and ChemCam included several mosaics to document walls of nearby hollow interiors, fractures, and the hollow-to-ridge transitions.
The plan for Sols 4656-4657 focused on a variety of remote sensing activities including a 360-degree mosaic by Mastcam — one of the most spectacular data products! ChemCam investigated the local bedrock and a raised resistant bedrock feature at “Chita” and “Chaco,” respectively, and then turned its sights to the distant floor of Gale crater to image features that may have formed when water eroded material from the interior walls of the crater rim.
Planning on Friday for Sols 4658-4660 included three targeted science blocks to dig deeper into the boxwork unit. ChemCam LIBS will analyze the bedrock at targets “Tarata” and “El Sombrio” and a rock that does not look like typical bedrock at “Cobres.” The Mastcam team assembled multiple images and mosaics that will help decipher the distribution of veins, fractures, and nodules (somewhat rounded features) in the bedrock, as well as small sand dunes in and around the workspace. The environmental theme group worked throughout the week to monitor clouds and dust-devil activity, and planned Mastcam tau observations to assess the optical depth of the atmosphere and constrain aerosol scattering properties.
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NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity at the base of Mount Sharp NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Share
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Last Updated Sep 15, 2025 Related Terms
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