In a First, Gravitational Waves Linked to Neutron Star Crash

ack

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Ronm1

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They were quite interesting podcast IMHO
 

NorthStar

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I've been reading about it recently, I was going to start a new thread when I saw yours.
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2017/10/astronomers-hear-and-see-cosmic-collision

"Scientists will spend years poring over the data from this discovery. We’re just getting to know these cosmic collisions and the science behind them. But we have been long acquainted with their effects. The aftermath of neutron-star mergers is all around us, in our mines, computers, toasters, wedding bands—the list goes on."



"It was a faint signal, but it told of one of the most violent acts in the universe, and it would soon reveal secrets of the cosmos, including how gold was created.

Forbes estimated that the collision created an estimated $10 octillion in gold, which is $10 billion, billion, billion.

What they witnessed in mid-August and revealed Monday was the long-ago collision of two neutron stars — a phenomenon California Institute of Technology's David H. Reitze called "the most spectacular fireworks in the universe."

The crash happened 130 million years ago, while dinosaurs still roamed on Earth, but the signal didn't arrive on Earth until Aug. 17 after traveling 130 million light-years. A light-year is 5.88 trillion miles.

The crash, called a kilonova, generated a fierce burst of gamma rays and a gravitational wave, a faint ripple in the fabric of space and time, first theorized by Albert Einstein.

The colliding stars spewed bright blue, super-hot debris that was dense and unstable. Some of it coalesced into heavy elements, like gold, platinum and uranium. Scientists had suspected neutron star collisions had enough power to create heavier elements, but weren't certain until they witnessed it.

"We see the gold being formed," said Syracuse's Brown.

Calculations from a telescope measuring ultraviolet light showed that the combined mass of the heavy elements from this explosion is 1,300 times the mass of Earth. And all that stuff — including lighter elements — was thrown out in all different directions and is now speeding across the universe.

Perhaps one day the material will clump together into planets the way ours was formed, Reitze said — maybe ones with rich veins of precious metals.

Almost all of the discoveries confirmed existing theories, but had not been proven — an encouraging result for theorists who have been trying to explain what is happening in the cosmos, said France Cordova, an astrophysicist who directs the National Science Foundation.

"We so far have been unable to prove Einstein wrong," said Georgia Tech physics professor Laura Cadonati. "But we're going to keep trying."
 
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BMCG

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So look at that platinum or gold in your technical audiophile "jewellery" ...and reconcile that shiny piece of metal with its synthesis arising from two neutron stars fatally dancing

Gots to say ...astrophysics and cosmology still elicit a deep wonderment.....
 

NorthStar

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It is certainly a huge discovery for the entire scientist community of our planet and its humanity, including the audiophile and cinephile communities, us.


It looks like two mega hurricanes colliding with each other in space.

That is a lot of gold floating in space just waiting to be collected by collection agencies with big shovels attached to their spaceship's armadas. We should be all set for eternity in the infinity of the universe. ...Till the next Big Bang, when Blade Runners roam our galaxies.
___

The gold we wear today is from that 130 million years ago's cosmic collision, just wow, totally cosmic, Atmos spheric orgasmic.

I don't think it has anything to do with global warming or climate change though, but you never know.
2017 is for sure a year of major events; gigantic, dramatic, tragic, discovery fantastic, life changing, electric, climatic, tropic and trumpetic.
...Many broken records, broken dreams, broken lives, ...and with still few months left to go.

This is a good time to be a space scientist, a space rocket explorer, a passenger in one of Elon Musk's spaceships, and an analyst in the art of sound reproduction in space and on time.
 
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cjfrbw

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Does this mean I need to add a "gravity wave cancellation circuit" to my power conditioner, now?
 

ack

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astrotoy

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Look at the Google Doodle for today. It celebrates the 107th birthday of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the Indian astrophysicist (who was a professor at the University of Chicago) who made the theoretical breakthrough that predicted neutron stars and black holes. The Doodle shows him as a young man, and then the famous Chandrasekhar limit, 1.44 times the mass of the sun, above which a star (after it exhausts its fuel) cannot withstand the force of gravity and collapses beyond the white dwarf stage (the future state of our sun) to become a neutron star or, if massive enough, a black hole. Chandra, as we called him, won the Nobel prize in Physics in 1983 and died in 1995, just four years before the Chandra X-Ray Observatory was launched (which is still functioning in space).

We also called him Candlestickmaker. :)

Larry (your friendly astrophysicist)
 

andromedaaudio

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I visited the university nikhef research institute where they contribute to the virgo project ,the equipment is used to isolate the measuring equipment of gravitational waves in italy from the earth , funny to see was that the simple basis of the system were springs(adjustable) a steel cable and weights .
With the now 3 measuring systems in the world , the scientists can make a 3 point measurment to give the exact location of the event , which they can then use to make observations with telescopes of the event

20171007_123241[1] by andromeda61, on Flickr

20171007_123140[1] by andromeda61, on Flickr

20171007_123219[1] by andromeda61, on Flickr


20171007_123149[1] by andromeda61, on Flickr
 
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