October 16, 2017

UPDATED LINK

ESO Telescopes Observe First Light from Gravitational Wave Source
Merging neutron stars scatter gold and platinum into space

A couple of other stories related to the discovery:

LIGO Gravitational Wave Discovery Shows Immense Force of Neutron Star Crash

Gravitational Waves Detected from the Same Cosmic Event

quote:
ESO’s fleet of telescopes in Chile have detected the first visible counterpart to a gravitational wave source. These historic observations suggest that this unique object is the result of the merger of two neutron stars. The cataclysmic aftermaths of this kind of merger — long-predicted events called kilonovae — disperse heavy elements such as gold and platinum throughout the Universe. This discovery, published in several papers in the journal Nature and elsewhere, also provides the strongest evidence yet that short-duration gamma-ray bursts are caused by mergers of neutron stars.

Well, it's revolutionary, that's for sure. And very unexpected. Not only do black holes cause gravity waves when they collide but so do neutron stars. These stars are the remnants of bigger stars that collapsed after cycling their original stores of hydrogen and helium to heavier elements. They weren't big enough to form black holes upon collapse, however.

Another discovery is the kilonova, which had been predicted but never before observed. It's 1,000 times bigger than a nova and creates much heavier elements such as gold and platinum.

From reading the article, it seems that gravitational waves travel faster than light. The LIGO detector picked up the waves 2 seconds before the ESO telescopes recorded light from the neutron star merger.

That's conditional, of course, upon confirmation that the gamma ray burst was associated with the neutron stars merging. If it is the case then this lends more evidence that gravity is an effect of spacetime and not a force similar to electromagnetism and the nuclear forces.

Of course, the collision happened 130 million light years away so it's possible that the gamma rays were slowed by intervening gravity along their path while the gravity waves met no such resistance. A bit of home cooking by gravity?

quote:
On 17 August 2017 the NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States, working with the Virgo Interferometer in Italy, detected gravitational waves passing the Earth. This event, the fifth ever detected, was named GW170817. About two seconds later, two space observatories, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and ESA’s INTErnational Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), detected a short gamma-ray burst from the same area of the sky.

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October 11, 2017

LINK

quote:
According to an announcement from the ESO, scientists working at the observatory have witnessed an astronomical phenomenon that has never been seen before. The details of this discovery will be released Monday, October 16th.

quote:
The last time that astronomers unveiled a groundbreaking discovery of this nature was when scientists working at LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) detected gravitational waves. Ultimately, the find ushered us into a new era in astronomy, allowing us to see the universe as never before.

quote:
perhaps scientists finally observed dark energy, the mysterious force that is thought to make up approximately 73 percent of the universe, or perhaps it is a discovery that scientists never before fathomed.

Don't you hate it when these teasers come out? We have to wait until Monday to know what has been discovered.

I'm going to guess that it has something to do with dark matter. The word "discovery" was used instead of "observation." I thInk this means that the discovery might be more indirect evidence of dark matter. Just a guess, though.

Anybody else want to make a guess? It sounds like the announcement that's coming Monday is about something big.

This post was edited on 10/16/17 at 6:07 pm