First Detection of Gravitational Waves from Neutron-Star Crash Marks New Era of Astronomy

[Judi Lynn]

By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | October 16, 2017 10:00am ET

A new era of astronomy has begun.

For the first time ever, scientists have spotted both gravitational waves and light coming from the same cosmic event — in this case, the cataclysmic merger of two superdense stellar corpses known as neutron stars.

The landmark discovery initiates the field of "multimessenger astrophysics," which promises to reveal exciting new insights about the cosmos, researchers said. The find also provides the first solid evidence that neutron-star smashups are the source of much of the universe's gold, platinum and other heavy elements. [Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars: The Discovery Explained]

How do researchers describe the finding? "Superlatives fail," said Richard O'Shaughnessy, a scientist with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) project.

"This is a transformation in the way that we're going to do astronomy," O'Shaughnessy, who's based at the Rochester Institute of Technology's Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation, told Space.com. "It's fantastic."

More:
https://www.space.com/38469-gravitational-waves-from-neutron-stars-discovery-ligo.html?utm_source=notification

[Alice11111]

1. That was the best news of the day. Amazing!!!

[Throck]

2. Sheldon Cooper eat your heart out.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Einsteins waves detected in star smash

By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News, Louisiana
16 October 2017

Scientists have detected the warping of space generated by the collision of two dead stars, or neutron stars.

They have confirmed that such mergers lead to the production of the gold and platinum that exists in the Universe.

The measurement of the gravitational waves given off by this cataclysmic event was made on 17 August by the LIGO-VIRGO Collaboration.

. . .

David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory at Caltech in Pasadena, California, said: "This is the one we've all been waiting for."

More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41640256

[Judi Lynn]

4. Why Gravitational Waves Are So Exhilarating

By Don Lincoln, Senior Scientist, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Adjunct Professor of Physics, University of Notre Dame | October 16, 2017 05:14pm ET

The gravitational-wave research community seems to be having a remarkable string of good luck.

A few weeks ago, two research teams named for the corresponding gravitational-wave detectors — the LIGO and Virgo collaborations — made their first announcement of the joint detection of these ripples in the fabric of space-time. The ripples were generated by highly energetic smash-ups — in this case a pair of black holes merging. A few days later, the Nobel Prize committee announced it had awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics to a trio of physicists for their roles in making it possible to detect gravitational waves at all.

And today (Oct. 16), the two collaborations made yet another spectacular announcement. On Aug. 17, they detected gravitational waves in association with a distant flash of visible light that was seen by a bevy of powerful telescopes. This time, the observation was of the merging, not of black holes, but of two neutron stars — extremely dense stellar carcasses. More precisely, the two LIGO detectors, in Louisiana and Washington state, observed these waves — and Virgo, near Pisa, Italy, did not. This means that the event occurred in a Virgo blind spot, which helped determine the location of the merger. [Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars: The Discovery Explained]

Less than 2 seconds after LIGO detected the gravitational waves, two orbiting satellites spied the universe's most powerful type of explosion, called a gamma-ray burst. The burst originated from NGC 4993, an elliptical galaxy about 130 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra. Using a set of protocols long set in place for such gravitational-wave detections, collaboration leaders from LIGO and Virgo notified the members of the world’s astronomical community, who turned their telescopes to the section of the southern sky from where the gamma-rays and gravitational waves originated. There, astronomers found a new light in the sky.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/60695-why-gravitational-wave-discovery-matters.html

[spike jones]

5. Riding gravity waves

On edit: tried to post a picture but failed.

[Judi Lynn]

7. After seeing your post, I looked for an image of someone riding gravity waves:

Cool!

Very memorable, for sure.

Thank you.

[Judi Lynn]

6. 2 Neutron Stars Collided, So Are They a Black Hole Now?

By Harrison Tasoff, Space.com Staff Writer | October 16, 2017 06:51pm ET

For the first time, scientists have seen the source of gravitational waves from two colliding neutron stars, and the space oddity doesn't stop there. Those neutron stars might have collapsed into a black hole after they merged, scientists say.

On Aug. 17, 2017, the gravitational-wave observatories LIGO (short for the "Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory" ) and Virgo detected a strong signal from the galaxy NGC 4993. Scientists pinpointed the source of that signal in the sky, and an international collaboration immediately sprung forth to observe the event with terrestrial and space observatories. Researchers detected light from the neutron-star crash across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, beginning with a burst of high-energy gamma-rays seconds after the gravitational waves were detected.

The observations indicate that the waves and light came from a pair of merging neutron stars about 130 million light-years away, according to a news conference on Monday Oct. 16, 2017. Neutron stars are the incredibly dense remnants of stars that have exploded in supernovas. The two that merged were 1.6 and 1.1 times as massive as our sun, but each was no wider than Washington, D.C., according to a statement by the Space Telescope Science Institute. [When Neutron Stars Collide! What Telescopes Saw (Videos)]

As the stars spiraled into each other, they sent gravitational waves through the universe and released tremendous amounts of light when they finally collided. Scientist call the phenomenon a "kilonova."

More:
https://www.space.com/38478-did-neutron-stars-collision-create-black-hole.html?utm_source=notification