Artist’s impression of merging neutron stars

This artist’s impression shows two tiny but very dense neutron stars at the point at which they merge and explode as a kilonova. Such a very rare event is expected to produce both gravitational waves and a short gamma-ray burst, both of which were observed on 17 August 2017 by LIGO–Virgo and Fermi/INTEGRAL respectively. Subsequent detailed observations with many ESO telescopes confirmed that this object, seen in the galaxy NGC 4993 about 130 million light-years from the Earth, is indeed a kilonova. Such objects are the main source of very heavy chemical elements, such as gold and platinum, in the Universe.

Credit:

ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser

Over de afbeelding

Id:eso1733q
Type:Ontwerp
Publicatiedatum:16 oktober 2017 16:00
Gerelateerde berichten:eso1733
Grootte:3840 x 2160 px

Over het object

Type:Local Universe : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Neutron Star
Categorie:Illustrations

Afbeeldingstypen

Grote JPEG
352,3 KB

Inzoomen


Achtergrond

1024x768
52,8 KB
1280x1024
74,5 KB
1600x1200
98,0 KB
1920x1200
110,7 KB
2048x1536
145,0 KB