Mapping the Boundaries of Our Home in Space with NASA’s IMAP Mission

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: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/nas...

Find out more about the IMAP mission: https://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 https://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: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14895. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/

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