The Aftermath of Explosive Neutron Star Merger Is More Crazy Than Scientists Thought (ScienceAlert)

MICHELLE STARR
19 JAN 2018

When something explodes, you expect there to be a bright flash that subsides.

This is what astrophysicists thought would happen when they observed the collision between two neutron stars last August - but contrary to expectations, it's still continuing to brighten months after the event, leaving scientists stunned.

According to data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray observatory, the aftermath of that collision is much more complex and interesting than anyone ever expected.

We'd never before directly observed a collision between two neutron stars. It was only thanks to the new field of gravitational wave astronomy detecting ripples in the very fabric of space-time that astronomers around the world were able to point their instruments at the event later named GW170817 on 17 August last year.
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And we learned a lot - for example, collisions between neutron stars really do produce gamma-ray bursts, some of the brightest and most energetic events in the universe. This confirmed a long-held hypothesis about one origin of these spectacles.
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more: https://www.sciencealert.com/neutron-star-collision-gamma-ray-burst-aftershock-getting-brighter?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1