The Jet/Cocoon Riddle: Violent Merger Of Neutron Stars In Constellation Of Hydra – Exposed

Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – An international research team including astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, has combined radio telescopes from five continents to prove the existence of a narrow stream of material, a so-called jet, emerging from the only gravitational wave event involving two neutron stars observed so far.

With its high sensitivity and excellent performance, the 100-m radio telescope in Effelsberg played an important role in the observations.

In August 2017, two neutron stars were observed colliding, producing gravitational waves that were detected by the American LIGO and European Virgo detectors. Neutron stars are ultra-dense stars, roughly the same mass as the Sun, but similar in size to a city like Cologne.

This event is the first and only one of this type that has been observed so far, and it happened in a galaxy 130 million light years away from Earth, in the constellation of Hydra.

“We expected part of the material to be ejected through a collimated jet, but it was unclear whether this material could successfully pierce through the surrounding shell.” Giancarlo Ghirlanda from the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), said in a press release.

Astronomers observed the event and the subsequent evolution across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma-rays, X-rays to visible light and radio waves. Two hundred days after the merger, observations combining radio telescopes in Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North America proved the existence of a jet emerging from this violent collision.

This neutron star merger represented the first case where it was possible to associate a detection of gravitational waves to an object emitting light. T

he event has confirmed scientific theories that have been under discussion for tens of years, and the association of neutron star mergers with one of the most powerful explosions in the Universe: gamma-ray bursts. After the merger, a huge amount of material was expelled into space, forming a shell around the object.

Astronomers have been tracing its evolution at different wavelengths. However, there were still some remaining questions concerning this event that could not be clarified by any previous observations.

Original story

Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer