Astronomers to describe phenomenon "never witnessed before"

Anything yet?

I'm in the south 40...

I think the gist of it is: Graviatational wave detected and source was observed optically. Observations fit what would be expected for two neutron stars colliding.

Someone can probably elaborate.

a reply to: Terminal1

Go to www. eso.org/public/ and watch the video.

Also, turn the volume WAY up...scientists are great at many things, but apparently they cannot mix sound worth a damn.

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: zetaReticulous

cant be becayse this was already covered in the LIGO nobel prize in physics , when they done their release conference.

This is something new completely

LIGO detected the gravitational wave. This announcement is about the VISUAL observation of the source of the gravitational wave.

ESO’s fleet of telescopes in Chile have detected the first visible counterpart to a gravitational wave source. These historic observations suggest that this unique object is the result of the merger of two neutron stars. The cataclysmic aftermaths of this kind of merger — long-predicted events called kilonovae — disperse heavy elements such as gold and platinum throughout the Universe. This discovery, published in several papers in the journal Nature and elsewhere, also provides the strongest evidence yet that short-duration gamma-ray bursts are caused by mergers of neutron stars.

For the first time ever, astronomers have observed both gravitational waves and light (electromagnetic radiation) from the same event, thanks to a global collaborative effort and the quick reactions of both ESO’s facilities and others around the world.

ESO Telescopes Observe First Light from Gravitational Wave Source

a reply to: TrueBrit

Lol...

Thanx tho.

Got 2 kids battling on Call of Duty and I only have a 3 Mbps connection. Videos are out of the question right now unless I want to frustrate myself and 2 preteens with buffering.

I'll just wait to click your link later. Was just curious about the jist of it all...

Thanx though..

a reply to: beetee

Yes, but also this was an interaction between two neutron stars...

Previous recordings have been made of two black holes in collision, but this was a different event, and unlike the black hole observations (which have been valuable in their own ways), this event actually taught us something about where the heavier, more interesting elements in our chemistry come from...

Also, although we have previously observed gravitational waves, we have not married those observations to observations of visible light. During this recent discovery, not only were GW detected, using the gravitational wave detection gear available, like LIGO, but other resources were deployed to observe the actual LIGHT from the event, and those resources recorded what is being referred to as a kilonova, the explosive result of the collision.

Will have to do more reading later, but that is what I got from watching approximately thirty seconds of the available video... I shall have to watch the vid on another computer later, because this one has no speakers, and my phone can only go so loud... terrible sound quality. Just tragic!

I think this conference confirms just how little we know.

Every new discovery brings with it new learning, new questions, and new assumptions.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

No , they act if we don't know anything. Keep us safe and tucked in.. And I'll bet there are ton of scientists that think when do you guys really tell us some shocking stories.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

YehI watched the live feed, pretty amazing stuff , I liked the follow up questions on what big things they expect next , I also liked the question about these events creating the heavy elements.
It's really impressive science , the sheer effort everyone puts in is incredible.
I love that science is still making discoveries, even though most of the phenomenon have been predicted by maths already it's nice to get the physical reality confirmed.

I immediately thought of such events and their observation being recorded then even predicted to a specific location and then some corporation immediately taking advantage of it in some mad technological future where they mine it for the useful elements as soon as its happened. Like some giant space vacuum sucking it all up for processing.

a reply to: TrueBrit

DId you watch the feed?

I really enjoyed the visual of the light emission changing colour from cold blue to that warm red glow
amazing they got the visual confirmation.

I also really enjoyed the graph of GW signals against time and GW1711 (cant remember its designation)
just so cool that this signal lasted for that length of time in comparison to the others.

Shockwaves and light flashes emitted by the cosmic fireball travelled some 130 million light-years to be captured by Earthly detectors on August 17, they revealed at simultaneous press conferences around the globe as a dozen science papers were published in top academic journals.

"We witnessed history unfolding in front of our eyes: two neutron stars drawing closer, closer... turning faster and faster around each other, then colliding and scattering debris all over the place," co-discoverer Benoit Mours of France's CNRS research institute told AFP.

The groundbreaking observation solved a number of physics riddles and sent ripples of anticipation through the scientific community.

Most jaw-dropping for many, the data finally revealed where much of the gold, platinum, mercury and other heavy elements in the Universe came from.

Telescopes saw evidence of newly-forged material in the fallout, the teams said—a source long suspected, now confirmed.

Phys.org - Neutron star smashup seen for first time, 'transforms' understanding of Universe.

The rumors were true! The guy let the cat out of the bag when this was an internet rumor (via twitter). Then he apologizes. They try to get the cat back in the bag by saying it was two black holes merging. What they were really doing was the science portion and verifying their data. The BH merger was when they stated there was no EM radiation detected-which was true, in a way, the first instruments were on the wrong side of the planet to detect anything!

Another satellite caught a gamma ray burst; another caught x-rays; then they were able to point visible light telescopes and caught the after glow. Then all the science/work to get their observations in a row. All the while, they were sworn to secrecy.

Rumours swirled within and beyond the astronomy community as scientists hastened to prepare initial findings for publication Monday in a dozen articles spread across several of the world's leading journals.

"There have been quite a few pints and glasses of wine or bubbly—privately, of course, because we haven't been allowed to tell anyone," Sutton told AFP.

(same source, directly above this quote is a color photo worth seeing!)

The papers written, the data verified, set for publication, all that was left was this announcement!

From MIT (LIGO):

For the first time, scientists have directly detected gravitational waves — ripples in space-time — in addition to light from the spectacular collision of two neutron stars. This marks the first time that a cosmic event has been viewed in both gravitational waves and light.

MIT News, Oct. 16, 2017 - LIGO and Virgo make first detection of gravitational waves produced by colliding neutron stars.

It might be helpful for someone to point out to the MSM that this is how real science works (hypothesis requires actual proof in order to be accepted as fact).

Is this the two black holes crashing into eaxh other?

originally posted by: tjack
Maybe they were able to image the source of the 4th detected gravitational wave.
www.theverge.com...

He shoots, he scores!

a reply to: sapien82

I did watch the feed, and I thought the most interesting thing about it, was how many key queries that we now have answers to, so soon after the observation.

Many astronomical observations which are made, tend to have implications which need an awful lot of leg work to even slightly hint at. But this one, as mentioned in the video, answered three right away! Sure, it now means that many more questions can be asked, because we have the tools necessary to answer them, but in terms of getting the very best out of the science, this observation takes the cake! What an astounding discovery, and what a fantastic team!

a reply to: sg1642

No.

This is two neutron stars, the remains of heavy stars which detonated, leaving only their collapsed, super dense cores behind. These things are so dense, that a teaspoon of the material of which they are made, would weigh some stupid number of billions of tons (by all means look it up on google for a more specific approximation).

This is an amazing discovery, because its the first gravitational wave observation of such an event, but also the first time that such an event has been simultaneously witnessed by more "mundane" kinds of telescopy as well. I put mundane in quotes, because even the most basic modern telescope is a work of bloody genius, but some of the things they are doing with these gravitational wave detectors are just mind blowing, and I cannot help get a bit of a nerdgasm over it, to be honest.

a reply to: sg1642

Similar. But because you can see a neutron star, they were able to image the event across the electro-magnetic spectrum... including visible light!

Had it been two black holes then all you could really see is an x-ray burst and gravitational waves.

They have already spotted the signatures of gold, mercury, and uranium being ejected into space! It confirms a theory that this is where heavier elements are created. It also confirms Einstein's Relativity that gravity waves propagate at the speed of light.

originally posted by: JimOberg

originally posted by: Illumimasontruth
a reply to: Gothmog

Both have been witnessed, so this should be something new.

C'mon Jim, just a little hint please Sir? I have a couple good sources and have not been told a thing about any big new discoveries.

Dropping emails to pry now!

I'm really clueless too. I've been concentrating on flood recovery, plus a few new rocket fuel dump UFOs. Not this.

Never mind

a reply to: TrueBrit

Aye something like the mass ejected by one neutron star in a a minute is more than the solar mass of our sun or something crazy like that !

They did mention it in the live stream about the crazy density of the neutron star
they also gave a relative scale compared to earths mass

I think it was during the questions

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

The big new question here is did they form a black hole?