LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory made physics history by managing to detect the previously elusive gravitational waves predicted by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity for the first time. They have, since they began operation, thrice observed the gravitational wave signatures emitted by the mergers of what are believed to be massive binary black hole systems. However, there is no confirmation of these events beyond the gravitational wave detection since black hole mergers may not emit anything else besides the gravitational waves. However, the merger of two neutron stars such as what is predicted to eventually happen to the Hulse–Taylor binary (which provided the first indirect confirmation of gravitational waves in the 1970s) will not only produce copious gravitational waves but possibly also a gamma ray burst or some other associated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The gravitational waves emitted by such an event would be weaker and harder for LIGO to detect, but on August 18th, noted astrophysicist J. Craig Wheeler tweeted a tantalising hint that they might actually have seen just such a thing happen:
New LIGO. Source with optical counterpart. Blow your sox off!
New Scientist reports that LIGO spokesperson David Shoemaker has not denied the rumour, and it seemed that four days after Wheeler's tweet the Hubble Space Telescope had been observing a neutron star binary candidate in the galaxy NGC 4993, which has since been deleted. From the article:
LIGO spokesperson David Shoemaker dodged confirming or denying the rumours, saying only "A very exciting O2 Observing run is drawing to a close August 25. We look forward to posting a top-level update at that time."
Speculation is focused on NGC 4993, a galaxy about 130 million light years away in the Hydra constellation. Within it, a pair of neutron stars are entwined in a deadly dance. While astronomers are staying silent on whether they are engaged in optical follow-ups to a potential gravitational wave detection, last night the Hubble Space Telescope turned its focus to a binary neutron star merger within the galaxy. A publicly available image of this merger was later deleted.
Further coverage and commentary from astrophysicist Ethan Siegel at Starts With A Bang.
Related Stories
Even small black holes emit gravitational waves when they collide, and LIGO heard them
LIGO scientists say they have discovered gravitational waves coming from another black hole merger, and it's the tiniest one they've ever seen.
The findings, submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters, could shed light on the diversity of the black hole population — and may help scientists figure out why larger black holes appear to behave a little differently from the smaller ones.
"Its mass makes it very interesting," said Salvatore Vitale, a data analyst and theorist with the LIGO Lab at MIT. The discovery, he added, "really starts populating more of this low-mass region that [until now] was quite empty."
The black holes had estimated masses of around 12 and 7 solar masses.
Related: LIGO May Have Detected Merging Neutron Stars for the First Time
First Joint Detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO and Virgo
"Kilonova" Observed Using Gravitational Waves, Sparking Era of "Multimessenger Astrophysics"
Neutron-star merger yields new puzzle for astrophysicists
The afterglow from the distant neutron-star merger detected last August has continued to brighten – much to the surprise of astrophysicists studying the aftermath of the massive collision that took place about 138 million light years away and sent gravitational waves rippling through the universe.
New observations from NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, reported in Astrophysical Journal Letters, indicate that the gamma ray burst unleashed by the collision is more complex than scientists initially imagined.
"Usually when we see a short gamma-ray burst, the jet emission generated gets bright for a short time as it smashes into the surrounding medium – then fades as the system stops injecting energy into the outflow," says McGill University astrophysicist Daryl Haggard, whose research group led the new study. "This one is different; it's definitely not a simple, plain-Jane narrow jet."
Brightening X-Ray Emission from GW170817/GRB 170817A: Further Evidence for an Outflow (open, DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aaa4f3) (DX)
Previously: LIGO May Have Detected Merging Neutron Stars for the First Time
"Kilonova" Observed Using Gravitational Waves, Sparking Era of "Multimessenger Astrophysics"
An 'unknown' burst of gravitational waves just lit up Earth's detectors:
Earth's gravitational wave observatories -- which hunt for ripples in the fabric of space-time -- just picked up something weird. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo detectors recorded an unknown or unanticipated "burst" of gravitational waves on Jan. 14.
The gravitational waves we've detected so far usually relate to extreme cosmic events, like two black holes colliding or neutron stars finally merging after being caught in a death spiral. Burst gravitational waves have not been detected before and scientists hypothesize they may be linked to phenomena such as supernova or gamma ray bursts, producing a tiny "pop" when detected by the observatories.
This unanticipated burst has been dubbed, for now, S200114f, and was detected by the software that helped confirm the first detection of gravitational waves.
[...] Astronomers have already swung their telescopes to the interesting portion of the sky, listening in across different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum for a whisper of what might have occurred.
Previously:
LIGO Observes Lower Mass Black Hole Collision
First Joint Detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO and Virgo
LIGO May Have Detected Merging Neutron Stars for the First Time
GW170104: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift 0.2
Europe's "Virgo" Gravitational Wave Detector Suffers From "Microcracks"
LIGO Black Hole Echoes Hint at General-Relativity Breakdown
LIGO Data Probes Where General Relativity Might Break Down
Did the LIGO Gravitational Wave Detector Find Dark Matter?
Second Detection of Gravitational Waves Announced by LIGO
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @07:45PM (8 children)
How was the binary located? Was it previously known?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:23PM (4 children)
Neutron stars are, in the astronomical sense, not too bright. But they are really heavy. So not likely previously known. But this is puzzling:
Hmm, why?, one would wonder. And why are there comments on a science article on SoylentNews! Must be the alt-left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:08PM
Care to speculate why images are being deleted? Wouldnt archive.org have it?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:26PM
Adjust your language to the present, otherwise very few will understand what you mean, magister.
On the contrary, I suspect the responsibility stays with the bigoted Christian wing of alt-right. Look, those two were a couple of the same se... errr... kind, perhaps one of them transgendered and upset the morals of the reporter (not that being just gay would have helped).
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday August 24 2017, @10:50PM
I think it's more likely the ctrl-delete.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by stormwyrm on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:38PM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:33PM (2 children)
It's unclear. The original space telescope live link in Ethan Siegel's article (which no longer shows the same image, it seems to change every day), formerly showed the picture of NGC 4993 which he appears to have saved (see the synopsis at ScienceBlogs [scienceblogs.com] for another link). Apparently the caption at the time read: "I am looking at the Star BNS-MERGER with Space Telescope Imaging Spectograph for on Tue, 22 Aug 2017 22:38:01 -04:00". That "BNS-MERGER" part is short for 'Binary Neutron Star Merger'. Here's another blog article [wordpress.com] by theoretical astrophysics professor Peter Coles at Cardiff University.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @12:07AM (1 child)
https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/ligo-leaks-and-ngc-4993/ [wordpress.com]
Verified by a dark energy camera?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @01:01AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:42PM
It seems these scientists have not innovated for several months. I think it's time to end their funding - good bye. I like scientists who get a Nobel prize every month.