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Starburst Mission: Neutron Star Collisions

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Brief overview

NASA's $20 million Starburst smallsat launches in 2027 to catch gamma-ray bursts from colliding neutron stars.

  1. Neutron star mergers forge gold and platinumFor the 2017 joint detection, the team estimates several Earth masses of gold and platinum were created in that single explosion.
  2. A washing-machine-sized satellite watching half the skyTwelve cesium iodide scintillation detectors in a box pattern let Starburst catch bursts that can occur randomly anywhere in the sky.
  3. A low-cost mission can still do frontier scienceThe $20 million Pioneers cap pushed the team toward off-the-shelf parts, even automotive-grade components, and fixed-price contracts.
Executive Summary AI
  • Host Andres Almeida introduces Starburst with its principal investigator, Dr. Dan Koszewski, out of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.0:42
  • Koszewski explains that short gamma-ray bursts last only a few seconds and, thanks to recent gravitational wave detections, are now known to come from two neutron stars colliding.1:39
  • The 2017 joint detection of gravitational waves and gamma rays, by LIGO and NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, created an estimated several Earth masses of gold and platinum and sparked the mission concept.3:18
  • Starburst is a 300-kilogram, roughly one-meter-cubed smallsat carrying 12 cesium iodide scintillation detectors in a box pattern, giving it a field of view of about half the sky at any given time.8:31
  • Built to the $20 million Astrophysics Pioneers cost cap with commercial off-the-shelf components and fixed-price contracts, the mission is now within months of its launch readiness date and is timed to fly with LIGO's sensitivity upgrade.11:36
Key Quote
“A single teaspoon of neutron star matter would weigh billions of tons.”
— Dan Koszewski2:18
Key Quote
“For that event, we estimate that about several Earth masses of gold and platinum were created in that single explosion.”
— Dan Koszewski3:27
Key Quote
“But as usually is the case, nature doesn't put all of its eggs in one basket.”
— Dan Koszewski3:37