A neutron-star merger is detected in gravitational waves and light
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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.
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Connections · 4
- Rapid neutron capture (the r-process)evidence_for
- Kilonovaconcerns
- Neutron starconcerns
- Stellar nucleosynthesisconcerns
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