On August 17th, a gravitational wave was detected by the US-based LIGO and European-based VIRGO observatories. A couple seconds later, NASA ‘s Fermi space telescope picked up a pulse of high-energy gamma-ray radiation from the constellation Hydra. Astronomers across the planet were notified of the event and over the next few days, hundreds of telescopes turned their eyes towards a galaxy located 130 million light-years from Earth.
For the first time ever, scientists have detected gravitational waves and light generated as two neutron stars merged together. Neutron stars are the leftover cores of massive stars that exploded as supernovas long ago. They are the densest known objects in the Universe, squeezing a mass equivalent to that of the Sun into a sphere only a few miles in diameter.
As the two neutron stars spiraled together, they shed energy in the form of spacetime-distorting gravitational waves. When they finally merged, an immense burst of gamma-ray radiation was expelled, a phenomenon long hypothesized by astrophysicists. The light from this kilonova was imaged by both Earth- and space-based telescopes for days after the event was first detected.
Source: https://goo.gl/vfttC6 (NASA)
Learn More: https://goo.gl/xewu6M (LIGO)
#ScienceGIF #Science #GIF #LIGO #VIRGO #NASA #JPL #Physics #Neutron #Star #Gravitational #Wave #Gamma #XRay #Burst #Energy #Astrophysics #Telescope #Satellite View Original Post on Google+
