{"id":12428,"date":"2017-10-17T22:06:35","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T03:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=12428"},"modified":"2017-10-17T22:06:35","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T03:06:35","slug":"ka-boom-x-10200","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/10\/17\/ka-boom-x-10200\/","title":{"rendered":"Ka-Boom! x 10^200"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember the LIGO<\/strong><\/em><\/a> device, used to detect gravity waves? Now it’s caught two neutron stars in the act.\u00a0Eric Betz on D-brief<\/strong> <\/em>has a nice description<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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An artist\u2019s illustration of two colliding neutron stars. (Credit: NASA\/Swift\/Dana Berry<\/strong>)<\/p><\/div>\n

They were neutron stars \u2014 the collapsed cores left behind after giant stars explode into supernovas. Closer and closer they spun, shedding gravitational energy, until the stars traveled at nearly the speed of light, completing an orbit 100 times every second.<\/p>\n

By then, dinosaurs reigned on Earth, and the first flowers were just blooming. That\u2019s when, 130 million years ago, the dance ended.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The collision was fast and violent, likely spawning a black hole. A shudder \u2014 a gravitational wave \u2014 was sent out across the fabric of space-time. And as the stars\u2019 outer layers launched into space, the force formed a vast cloud of subatomic particles that would cool into many Earths\u2019 worth of gold, platinum and uranium.<\/p>\n

Seconds later, a blast of high-energy gamma-rays \u2013 the most energetic kind of light \u2013 punched through the erupting cloud.<\/p>\n

The space-time ripple and the light crossed the cosmos together, and finally arrived at 6:41 a.m. Eastern on Aug. 17. The gravitational wave first reached Italy\u2019s freshly finished detector Advanced Virgo before stretching and squeezing the lasers at America\u2019s two LIGO sites.<\/p>\n

Two seconds later, NASA\u2019s gamma-ray detecting Fermi spacecraft caught the blast.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Neat stuff. Including direct confirmation that heavy elements are created in these mergers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember the LIGO device, used to detect gravity waves? Now it’s caught two neutron stars in the act.\u00a0Eric Betz on D-brief has a nice description: They were neutron stars \u2014 the collapsed cores left behind after giant stars explode into supernovas. Closer and closer they spun, shedding gravitational energy, until \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12428"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12430,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12428\/revisions\/12430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}