Astrophysics

Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR)

Pointed Observatory · Competed · PI-led · Launched on June 13, 2012 · Extended Mission · LCC: $170M/$248M (2025 $)Life-cycle cost: NASA’s reported cost to build, launch, and operate a mission through its prime mission, plus documented partner contributions, in 2025 dollars. Extended missions are not included. Methods · Wikipedia

Scope Active Mission WindowActivePapers published from the first full month after science operations begin through two years after the mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. For NuSTAR, papers published September 1, 2012 to January 1, 2024. Methods LifetimeLifetimeEvery tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. For NuSTAR, papers published from 2012 to November 3, 2026. Methods
Tracked publicationsTracked publications: peer-reviewed papers we found that name the mission or its instruments in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. Papers that used the data without naming it are missed. Methods1,936
CitationsCitations: every citation these publications have drawn to date. Older missions have had longer to collect them. Methods55,277
Citation indices
h-indexh-index: the largest h such that h papers have at least h citations each. It only grows with time, so older missions score higher. Methods94
g-indexg-index: the largest g for which the g most-cited papers together hold at least g² citations. Like the h-index, but it lets the most-cited papers count for more. Methods156
m-indexm-index: a mission’s h-index divided by the years since its first peer-reviewed paper. It falls every 1 January even when nothing else changes; the figure shown is as of November 3, 2026. It also discounts the long operating life that larger missions paid for. Methods6.3
toritori (total research impact, from SciX): for every paper citing one of the mission’s papers, 1 divided by the citing paper’s reference count times the cited paper’s author count, summed, with self-citations removed. It favors citations from papers with short reference lists and from outside the mission’s own authors. Computed over the tracked citation graph, which can be slightly incomplete. Always over every tracked publication to date, whichever scope is chosen. Methods122
riqriq (research impact quotient): 1,000 times the square root of tori, divided by the years since the mission’s first paper. A rate, not a total, so it does not keep growing with age the way the h-index and tori do. Like tori, always over every tracked publication to date. Methods689

Publications and citations by year (lifetime)

Publications per yearCumulative citations

Institutional contributions (lifetime)The institutions SciX lists for each paper’s authors, as printed on the paper, located through the Research Organization Registry. A square counts a paper once, however many of its authors worked there. Methods

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Tracked publications over the lifetime (1,936)

All publications CSV · JSON

  1. First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way

    Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, 2022, ApJ

    2,498 lifetime citations

  2. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) High-energy X-Ray Mission

    Harrison, Fiona A., 2013, ApJ

    2,170 lifetime citations

  3. Swift and NuSTAR observations of GW170817: Detection of a blue kilonova

    Evans, P. A., 2017, Sci

    560 lifetime citations

  4. First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. II. EHT and Multiwavelength Observations, Data Processing, and Calibration

    Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, 2022, ApJ

    463 lifetime citations

  5. Discovery of Coherent Pulsations from the Ultraluminous X-Ray Source NGC 7793 P13

    Fürst, F., 2016, ApJ

    380 lifetime citations

  6. Properties of AGN coronae in the NuSTAR era

    Fabian, A. C., 2015, MNRAS

    364 lifetime citations

  7. Cosmic X-ray surveys of distant active galaxies. The demographics, physics, and ecology of growing supermassive black holes

    Brandt, W. N., 2015, A&ARv

    346 lifetime citations

  8. An Embedded X-Ray Source Shines through the Aspherical AT 2018cow: Revealing the Inner Workings of the Most Luminous Fast-evolving Optical Transients

    Margutti, R., 2019, ApJ

    308 lifetime citations

  9. Calibration of the NuSTAR High-energy Focusing X-ray Telescope.

    Madsen, Kristin K., 2015, ApJS

    301 lifetime citations

  10. A Multimessenger Picture of the Flaring Blazar TXS 0506+056: Implications for High-energy Neutrino Emission and Cosmic-Ray Acceleration

    Keivani, A., 2018, ApJ

    298 lifetime citations

  11. Discovery of pulsations from NGC 300 ULX1 and its fast period evolution

    Carpano, S., 2018, MNRAS

    290 lifetime citations

  12. The multi-phase winds of Markarian 231: from the hot, nuclear, ultra-fast wind to the galaxy-scale, molecular outflow

    Feruglio, C., 2015, A&A

    289 lifetime citations

  13. The outflow structure of GW170817 from late-time broad-band observations

    Troja, E., 2018, MNRAS

    275 lifetime citations

  14. A rapidly spinning supermassive black hole at the centre of NGC 1365

    Risaliti, G., 2013, Natur

    268 lifetime citations

  15. Dark matter triggers of supernovae

    Graham, Peter W., 2015, PhRvD

    251 lifetime citations

  16. NuSTAR Discovery of a 3.76 s Transient Magnetar Near Sagittarius A*

    Mori, Kaya, 2013, ApJ

    248 lifetime citations

  17. NuSTAR Observations of the Bullet Cluster: Constraints on Inverse Compton Emission

    Wik, Daniel R., 2014, ApJ

    236 lifetime citations

  18. New Spectral Model for Constraining Torus Covering Factors from Broadband X-Ray Spectra of Active Galactic Nuclei

    Baloković, M., 2018, ApJ

    231 lifetime citations

  19. The Destruction and Recreation of the X-Ray Corona in a Changing-look Active Galactic Nucleus

    Ricci, C., 2020, ApJ

    217 lifetime citations

  20. Rapid Variability of Blazar 3C 279 during Flaring States in 2013-2014 with Joint Fermi-LAT, NuSTAR, Swift, and Ground-Based Multiwavelength Observations

    Hayashida, M., 2015, ApJ

    201 lifetime citations

How we found these papers

We searched NASA’s Science Explorer (SciX) for peer-reviewed articles naming NuSTAR in the title, abstract or keywords; standard filters drop articles that are not peer-reviewed and magazine pieces.

(((abs:"NuSTAR" NOT (=abs:"Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research" OR =abs:"Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research" OR =abs:"Nuclear Structure Astrophysics and Reactions" OR =abs:"radioactive beam" OR =abs:"radioactive beams" OR =abs:"radioactive ion beam" OR =abs:"radioactive ion beams" OR =abs:"exotic nuclei" OR abs:((DESPEC OR GSI) AND (nuclear OR nuclei OR isotope OR detector OR beam)))) OR =abs:"Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array" OR facility:"NuSTAR")) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[2012-09 TO 2040-01] AND NOT bibstem:("A&R" OR "ACPD" OR "AIASJ" OR "AMTD" OR "AeAm" OR "AirSp" OR "AsNow" OR "AsUAI" OR "AvWST" OR "BGD" OR "C&E" OR "C&T" OR "CAPJ" OR "CliPD" OR "E&S" OR "ENews" OR "ESDD" OR "ESSDD" OR "ESuDD" OR "GID" OR "GMDD" OR "GeCAS" OR "HESSD" OR "IrAJ" OR "JCos" OR "JRASC" OR "LAstr" OR "MNSSA" OR "Met" OR "NHESD" OR "NPGD" OR "NewSc" OR "OcScD" OR "Orion" OR "PhT" OR "PhTea" OR "PhuZ" OR "PhyOJ" OR "PhyW" OR "PlR" OR "SOILD" OR "SciAm" OR "SpFl" OR "TCD" OR "ZemVs")

Open in SciX

Added after review (1)

  1. A rapidly spinning supermassive black hole at the centre of NGC 1365 Mission's first published science result: joint XMM-Newton and NuSTAR measurement of the black hole spin in NGC 1365. Decision 🤖

Removed after review (10)

  1. CIAO: Chandra's Data Analysis System for X-Ray Astronomy and Beyond Describes Chandra's CIAO analysis software; does not name NuSTAR. Decision 🤖
  2. Astrophysics: Black holes in a spin Nature News & Views commentary on another paper; not a research paper. Decision 👨
  3. A model for the non-thermal emission of the very massive colliding-wind binary HD 93129A Proceedings version of 2016A&A...591A.139D (same paper). Decision 👨
  4. KIT - automated small telescope ADS record whose title and abstract belong to different works; not a publication of record. Decision 👨
  5. Measuring the Masses of White Dwarfs with X-rays: A NuSTAR Legacy Survey (Abstract) Meeting abstract of 2020MNRAS.498.3457S (same work). Decision 👨
  6. ULX NuSTAR J095551+6940.8: A Highly Magnetized Neutron Star in a High-Mass X-ray Binary Proceedings summary of 2015MNRAS.448L..40E (same work). Decision 👨
  7. Hard X-ray view of the γ-ray binary LS I +61°303 Proceedings version of 2023MNRAS.525.1848S (same work). Decision 👨
  8. The UK NuStAR Project About the UK part of FAIR's NUSTAR nuclear-physics collaboration; not the X-ray telescope. Decision 🤖
  9. Wilsonian Renormalization Group and the Lippmann-Schwinger Equation with a Multitude of Cutoff Parameters Nuclear theory paper naming FAIR's NUSTAR collaboration in a grant line; not the X-ray telescope. Decision 🤖
  10. Detectors and front-end electronics for nuclear physics research at IUAC Nuclear physics detector review naming FAIR's NUSTAR collaboration; not the X-ray telescope. Decision 🤖