2 years ago
Astronomers can for the first time detect smashing together from Dead Suns known as the Neutron Star, thanks to a strong new telescope.
The neutron star collision is the key to our understanding of the universe.
They are considered to have created heavy metals that form stars and planets like billions of years ago.
The light from the accident was only seen for a few nights so the telescope had to compete to find it.
Astronomers observed one of these collisions in 2017, but most of them found it in luck.
Transient Optical Observer British gravitational wave (Goto), which is located above the clouds on the Spanish island of Volcanic Spain in La Palma, is now systematically hunting for them.
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"When a very good detection came, it was all the hands in the deck to use it," Prof. Danny Steeghs, from Warwick University, told me in La Palma.
"Speed ??is an essence. We are looking for something that is very short -lived - there is no much time before they disappear".
Neutron stars are so heavy that one small teaspoon of the ingredients weighs four billion tons.
Telescope allows astronomers to effectively solve one open to see what is in it.
The new telescope looks like a rocket launch battery
So that you can get a clear sky view, the telescope is located at the top of the mountain, home for a dozen instruments of all shapes and sizes, each of which studies different phenomena.
When the twin dome opens, they revealed two jet -black batteries from eight cylinder telescopes that were bolted together - structures that were more like threatening rocket launchers. Each battery covers each sky spot on it by spinning quickly vertically and horizontally
The neutron star is a dead sun that has collapsed under its huge weight, destroying the atoms that once made him shine. They have strong gravity so they are attracted to each other. Finally they fell together and joined.
When that happened, they created a flash of light and strong shock waves throughout the universe. That makes everything in the universe shaky, including, invisible, atoms in each of us.
Shock waves, called gravitational waves, distort space. When detected on earth, the new telescope rushed to find the right location of the flash.
BBC News/Stelios Thoukidides
Caption,
Neutron stars are the sunfall sun under their own gravitational weight, destroying atoms that once made them shine
The operator aims to find it in a few hours, or even minutes of gravitational wave detection. They took a photo of the sky and then digitally deleted the stars, planets, and galaxies that were there the night before. Any light spots that did not exist before were probably a colliding neutron star.
This usually takes days and weeks, but now it must be done in real time. This is a big task, finished using computer software.
"You will think that this explosion is very energetic, very radiant, it should be easy," said Astrophysics Professor Dr. Joe Lyman. "But we have to search through one hundred million stars for one object we are interested in.
"We have to do this very quickly because the object will disappear in two days.
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