A neutron-star merger is detected in gravitational waves and light

Assembled from 36 blocks · 1 evidence · 27 related

1. Story
2. The LIGO and Virgo detectors recorded the inspiral of two neutron stars; about eleven hours later an optical counterpart, AT2017gfo, was found in the galaxy NGC 4993 at roughly 40 megaparsecs. The transient faded and reddened over days in the manner predicted for material heated by the radioactive decay of freshly made r-process nuclei, with inferred ejecta of a few hundredths of a solar mass. It established neutron-star mergers as a site of heavy-element synthesis and is the founding event of multi-messenger astronomy.
3. Knowledge
4. Neutron star
5. Stellar nucleosynthesis
6. Rapid neutron capture (the r-process)
7. Kilonova
8. A neutron-star merger is detected in gravitational waves and light
9. Connections
10. Rapid neutron capture (the r-process)
11. Kilonova
12. Neutron star
13. Stellar nucleosynthesis
14. Stellar nucleosynthesis
15. Kilonova
16. B2FH sets out the synthesis of the elements in stars
17. A neutron-star merger is detected in gravitational waves and light
18. Rapid neutron capture (the r-process)
19. A neutron-star merger is detected in gravitational waves and light
20. Degeneracy pressure
21. Supernova
22. Baade and Zwicky propose supernovae and neutron stars
23. A regularly pulsing radio source is identified
24. A pulsar is found inside the Crab Nebula
25. SN 1987A: neutrinos from a collapsing core reach Earth
26. A neutron-star merger is detected in gravitational waves and light
27. A radius is measured for the heaviest known neutron star
28. JWST finds the compact object in SN 1987A
29. Hydrogen fusion: the proton-proton chain and the CNO cycle
30. The iron peak in nuclear binding energy
31. Rapid neutron capture (the r-process)
32. The first stars form from metal-free gas
33. B2FH sets out the synthesis of the elements in stars
34. A neutron-star merger is detected in gravitational waves and light
35. Evidence
36. Establishes the 17 August 2017 binary neutron-star merger and the associated kilonova AT2017gfo in NGC 4993 at roughly 40 Mpc as a site of r-process nucleosynthesis. Volume and page numbers are deliberately not asserted because they were not confirmed. Ejecta mass estimates of 0.03-0.06 solar masses come from modelling papers summarised via search, not from this paper.