Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, is a new mission that will map the boundaries of our heliosphere — a giant protective bubble created by the Sun that encapsulates our solar system. The spacecraft will study the Sun’s activity and how the heliosphere boundary interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond.
The heliosphere protects the solar system from dangerous high-energy particles called galactic cosmic rays. Mapping the heliosphere’s boundaries helps scientists understand our home in space and how it came to be habitable.
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.nasa.gov/mission/imap
Music credit: “Proxima Centauri” by Sebastian Barnaby Robertson [BMI}, Michael Garcia [BMI] via Universal Production Music
Credit: NASA/Joy Ng
This video can be freely shared and downloaded at svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14896. 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/14896. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines.
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NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, is a new mission that will map the boundaries of our heliosphere — a giant protective bubble created by the Sun that encapsulates our solar system. The spacecraft will study the Sun’s activity and how the heliosphere boundary interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond.
The heliosphere protects the solar system from dangerous high-energy particles called galactic cosmic rays. Mapping the heliosphere’s boundaries helps scientists understand our home in space and how it came to be habitable.
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.nasa.gov/mission/imap
Music credit: “Proxima Centauri” by Sebastian Barnaby Robertson [BMI}, Michael Garcia [BMI] via Universal Production Music
Credit: NASA/Joy Ng
This video can be freely shared and downloaded at svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14896. 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/14896. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines.
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: x.com/NASAGoddard
· Facebook: facebook.com/NASAGoddard
· Flickr: flickr.com/photos/gsfc
