A long - standing goal of the LIGO project has been the development of multi-messenger astronomy — the near - simultaneous observation of cataclysmic events such
as neutron star mergers or supernova explosions in both gravitational waves and light, providing details about the astrophysics of these phenomena that can't be revealed through either alone.
Not exact matches
«We know very well that black holes can be formed by the collapse of large
stars, or
as we have seen recently, the
merger of two
neutron stars,» said Savvas Koushiappas, an associate professor of physics at Brown University and coauthor of the study with Avi Loeb from Harvard University.
«Previously,
as anticipated, gamma ray detectors had observed bursts of gamma rays such
as were expected from
neutron star mergers.
«Our theories predicted that
neutron star binaries, which would inevitably merge
as they emit gravitational waves, would produce a short and distinctive burst of gamma rays at the moment of their
merger,» Mészáros said.
All the previous gravitational - wave detections since the first in September 2015 had been the result of two merging black holes — objects much more massive than a
neutron star — which have left only gravitational waves
as fleeting clues of their
merger.
Researchers define sensitivity
as the distance to which a detector could spot the
merger of two
neutron stars with masses 1.4 times the sun's.
Frustratingly for the Virgo team, the steel wires are expected to have the most impact on sensitivity to gravitational waves with lower frequencies than
neutron star mergers, such
as those from the
mergers of black holes.
And his adviser had set up a collaboration to search for possible
neutron -
star mergers as LIGO detected gravitational waves and gave astronomers a rough estimate of where in the sky they seemed to be coming from.
The observations that they were able to take ultimately helped reveal that
neutron -
star mergers create heavy elements found on Earth, such
as gold.
The Hebrew University team of scientists have shown that these contradicting observations can be reconciled if the source of radioactive plutonium (
as well
as other rare elements, such
as gold and uranium) is in
mergers of binary
neutron stars.
Besides black hole
mergers and
neutron star smashups, in the future, scientists might also spot waves from an exploding
star, known
as a supernova.
Gravitational waves are tiny ripples in space and time itself, set off by cosmic cataclysms such
as the
merger of two
neutrons stars or black holes.
The most important discovery in astronomy in 2017 was the groundbreaking discovery of a gravitational wave event GW170817 due to the
merger of two
neutron stars as well
as its associated short GRB (gamma ray burst) 170817A and other electromagnetic counterpart emissions in multi-wavelength.
It was
as if the
neutron star merger, sometimes referred to
as a kilonova, had somehow forgotten about them.
A few hours after the initial detection by LIGO and Virgo, the source of the
neutron star merger had been localized to an area roughly the size of 150 full moons, or about the size of your palm if you stick it
as far away from your eyes
as possible.
So far, only the gravitational waves from black hole
mergers have been detected, but
as the sensitivity of laser interferometers increases, scientists hope to detect collisions between
neutron stars, for example.
Within the next 24 hours,
as the night sky swept west, observatories In Hawaii, Australia and South Africa would each make their own observations, piecing together a movie of the first
neutron star merger ever observed.
This is the first time that scientists have measured both the gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves from a single cosmic event, connecting a GRB with a
neutron star merger and opening a brand - new way to study the universe — known
as «multi-messenger astronomy.»
Last year astronomers around the world witnessed the
merger of two
neutron stars as gravitational waves, light, radio and gamma rays, but the aftermath of the mashup hasn't played out quite
as expected.
Subsequently, matter from the debris of the
merger that swirls rapidly around the newly created new black hole has been modelled
as amplifying the strength of the combined magnetic field left over by the
neutron stars after their
merger over the next 11 milliseconds.
Berkeley Lab is a member of the collaboration for ZTF, which is designed to discover supernovae and also to search for rare and exotic events such
as those that occur during the aftermath of
neutron star mergers.