Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
NASA’s new Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, will explore and map the very boundaries of our heliosphere — a huge bubble created by the Sun's wind that encapsulates our solar system — and study how that boundary interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond.
As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will chart the vast range of particles in interplanetary space, helping to investigate two of the most important overarching issues in heliophysics — the energization of charged particles from the Sun, and the interaction of the solar wind with interstellar space. Additionally, IMAP will support near real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic particles, which can produce hazardous conditions in the space environment near Earth.
IMAP is launching no earlier than Sept. 23, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Learn more about IMAP science: science.nasa.gov/missions/nasas-imap-mission-to-study-boundaries-of-our-home-in-space
Find out more about the IMAP mission: science.nasa.gov/mission/imap
Music credit: "Soaring Dreams” by Klas Johan Wahl and Anders Paul Niska [STIM], “Electric Works” by Philippe Lhommet [SACEM], and “Mercurial Temperment” by Christian Telfold [ASCAP] from Universal Production Music
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Producer/Editor: Lacey Young (eMITS)
Writer: Mara Johnson-Groh (eMITS)
Narrator: Jake Richmond (NASA)
Animators: Jonathan North (eMITS), Adriana Manrique (eMITS), Krystofer Kim (eMITS)
Talent: Eric Christian (NASA), Dave McComas (Princeton University), Matina Gkioulidou (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory)
Additional Video and Animations:
Princeton University
Sound Effects:
Pixabay
This video can be freely shared and downloaded at svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14895. While the video in its entirety can be shared without permission, the music and some individual imagery may have been obtained through permission and may not be excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on such imagery may be found here: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14895. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center
If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel: youtube.com/NASAGoddard
Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
· Instagram instagram.com/nasagoddard
· X twitter.com/NASAGoddard
· Facebook: facebook.com/NASAGoddard
· Flickr flickr.com/photos/gsfc
NASA’s new Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, will explore and map the very boundaries of our heliosphere — a huge bubble created by the Sun's wind that encapsulates our solar system — and study how that boundary interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond.
As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will chart the vast range of particles in interplanetary space, helping to investigate two of the most important overarching issues in heliophysics — the energization of charged particles from the Sun, and the interaction of the solar wind with interstellar space. Additionally, IMAP will support near real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic particles, which can produce hazardous conditions in the space environment near Earth.
IMAP is launching no earlier than Sept. 23, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Learn more about IMAP science: science.nasa.gov/missions/nasas-imap-mission-to-study-boundaries-of-our-home-in-space
Find out more about the IMAP mission: science.nasa.gov/mission/imap
Music credit: "Soaring Dreams” by Klas Johan Wahl and Anders Paul Niska [STIM], “Electric Works” by Philippe Lhommet [SACEM], and “Mercurial Temperment” by Christian Telfold [ASCAP] from Universal Production Music
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Producer/Editor: Lacey Young (eMITS)
Writer: Mara Johnson-Groh (eMITS)
Narrator: Jake Richmond (NASA)
Animators: Jonathan North (eMITS), Adriana Manrique (eMITS), Krystofer Kim (eMITS)
Talent: Eric Christian (NASA), Dave McComas (Princeton University), Matina Gkioulidou (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory)
Additional Video and Animations:
Princeton University
Sound Effects:
Pixabay
This video can be freely shared and downloaded at svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14895. While the video in its entirety can be shared without permission, the music and some individual imagery may have been obtained through permission and may not be excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on such imagery may be found here: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14895. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center
If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel: youtube.com/NASAGoddard
Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
· Instagram instagram.com/nasagoddard
· X twitter.com/NASAGoddard
· Facebook: facebook.com/NASAGoddard
· Flickr flickr.com/photos/gsfc
