Used on Earth for medical imaging and in airport security machines, high-energy x-rays are naturally produced by some of the most exotic objects in the universe. (Also see related pictures: "X-Ray History—Hidden Kitten, Quackery, and More.")

NuSTAR will seek out these rays to capture images of black holes, neutron stars, and other cosmic bodies with a hundred times more sensitivity and ten times better resolution than previous spacecraft.

Current x-ray telescopes—such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton—can get clear looks at objects that emit lower energy x-rays, but due to technical challenges, these craft have trouble bringing higher energy wavelengths into focus.

NuSTAR will use a row of 133 fingernail-thin mirrors stacked like