Now, three-and-a-half years after the merger, the jet faded away, revealing a new source of mysterious X-rays.Īs the leading explanation for the new X-ray source, astrophysicists believe expanding debris from the merger generated a shock – similar to the sonic boom from a supersonic plane. In this case, a narrow, off-axis jet of high-energy particles accompanied the GW170817 merger event. When the two neutron stars meet, their merger leads to the formation of either a more massive neutron star, or a black hole, depending on mass.Ī kilonova is essentially the blast that occurs from the merger event, which is 1,000 times brighter than a classical nova.īack in 2017, scientists detected the merger of two neutron stars in a galaxy named NGC 4993, thanks to a gravitational wave signal called GW170817. When two neutron stars orbit each other closely, they gradually spiral inward due to gravitational radiation, almost like two coins spiralling closer and closer together as the reach the centre of a charity coin spinner. Neutron stars – the collapsed cores of giant stars – have a very small radius (typically 18.6 miles, or 30 km) and very high density, composed predominantly of closely packed neutrons. They're among the densest objects in the universe. This gives us an opportunity to study and understand new physical processes, which have not before been observed.' 'We are looking at something new and extraordinary for the very first time. 'We have entered uncharted territory here in studying the aftermath of a neutron star merger,' said Northwestern's Aprajita Hajela, who led the study. The new study has been led by experts at Northwestern’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) in Evanston, Illinois.
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