Gravitational waves

[Hrothbern]

"Have we detected a new flavour of gravitational wave? Speculation is swelling that researchers have spotted the subtle warping of the fabric of space resulting from the cataclysmic collision of two neutron stars"

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...etected-a-new-kind-of-gravitational-wave/amp/

see also https://www.sciencealert.com/rumour...g-gravitational-wave-announcement-is-imminent

 

[Perfection]

Holy bananas. That would be awesome. I wonder if the merger resulted in a new neutron star or a black hole.

 

[Hrothbern]

Holy bananas. That would be awesome. I wonder if the merger resulted in a new neutron star or a black hole.

Awesome indeed !
I don't know whether you did read fully both articles,
but it looks like that we have Hubble aimed at the binary neutron star system causing the gravitational waves we detect (only 130 million light year away)

 

[uppi]

Good that VIRGO is now operational as well. That way they can localize the source better than somewhere in that half of the sky and there is the chance to point optical telescopes at it. It seem that the age of gravitational wave astronomy is going to start.

 

[red_elk]

So, the new part is that they now detected gravitational waves from the source which is observable through optical telescopes - unlike previous detections?
Sounds great.

 

[Michkov]

So, the new part is that they now detected gravitational waves from the source which is observable through optical telescopes - unlike previous detections?
Sounds great.

Yes previous detection were black hole black hole mergers. Not much too observer there, also the position in the sky isn't know that well for those as we had too few detectors online to triangulate the directions.

 

[Hrothbern]

Nice article with further info on the neutron star collision of 130 m years ago.
With current data it is now suggested that such collisions are the main source of heavy elements like gold
This collision estimated at 10,000 earth masses in gold only.

"Optical and infrared data captured after the neutron-star merger also help clarify the formation of the heaviest elements in the universe, like uranium, platinum and gold, in what’s called r-process nucleosynthesis. Scientists long believed that these rare, heavy elements, like most other elements, are made during high-energy events such as supernovas. A competing theory that has gained prominence in recent years argues that neutron-star mergers could forge the majority of these elements. According to that thinking, the crash of neutron stars ejects matter in what’s called a kilonova. “Once released from the neutron stars’ gravitational field,” the matter “would transmute into a cloud full of the heavy elements we see on rocky planets like Earth,” Dent explained."

https://www.quantamagazine.org/neut...es-space-time-and-lights-up-the-sky-20171016/

 

[uppi]

This is huge! First observation of a neutron star collision. So much new data, so many theories confirmed - I don't think there was ever a day that revealed so much about the universe as the day when these observation were made.

 

[red_elk]

We live in the future
A brief popular description of the discovery: