130 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed Earth and the first flowering plants were beginning to bloom, two neutron stars spiraled into each other. #OTD in 2017 the gravitational waves arrived and made a mirror here on Earth move about 1/1000 of a proton radius.
Image: LIGO
Image: LIGO
About the same time one of @LIGO’s detectors was ringing, the @NASAFermi space telescope detected a burst of gamma rays. @LIGO and @ego_virgo’s automated systems determined that the signals were probably related.
The same subatomic shiver was confirmed in the second LIGO detector, and an alert went out that turned telescopes around the world towards the patch of sky that issued the chirp and burst.
This was the first example of an astrophysical event being simultaneously detected via gravitational waves and across the electromagnetic spectrum, opening up a new sort of “multi-messenger astronomy,” an unprecedented way of measuring the universe. #GW170817
Happy first anniversary to #GW170817!
Why not #FF some black hole, relativity, and astrophysics folks on twitter? Here’s a list to get you started:
twitter.com/mcnees/lists/r…
Binary neutron star inspiral animation: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab
Why not #FF some black hole, relativity, and astrophysics folks on twitter? Here’s a list to get you started:
twitter.com/mcnees/lists/r…
Binary neutron star inspiral animation: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab
☝️Colliding neutron stars, the first flowering plants, and multi-messenger astronomy.
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