Einstein’s waves detected in star smash

Scientists have detected the warping of space generated by the collision of two dead stars, or neutron stars.

They have confirmed that such mergers lead to the production of the gold and platinum that exists in the Universe.

The measurement of the gravitational waves given off by this cataclysmic event was made on 17 August by the LIGO-VIRGO Collaboration.

The discovery enabled telescopes all over the world to capture details of the merger as it unfolded.

David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory at Caltech in Pasadena, California, said: "This is the one we’ve all been waiting for."

The outburst took place in a galaxy called NGC 4993, located roughly a thousand billion, billion km away in the Constellation Hydra.

It happened 130 million years ago - when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It was so far away that the light and gravitational waves have only just reached us.

The stars themselves had masses 10-20% greater than our Sun - but they were no larger than 30km across.

They were the crushed leftover cores of massive stars that long ago exploded as supernovas.

They are called neutron stars because the process of crushing the star makes the charged protons and electrons in the atoms of the star combine - to form an object made entirely of neutrons.

Such remnants are incredibly dense - a teaspoonful would weigh a billion tonnes.

The detection enabled 70 telescopes to obtain the first ever detailed pictures of such an event.

These show an explosion 1,000 times more powerful than a supernova - a burst called a kilonova.

Researchers had suspected that this huge release of energy leads to the creation of rare elements, such as gold and platinum.

Dr Kate Maguire, from Queen’s University Belfast, who analysed the collision’s burst of light, said that the theory was now proven.

Using some of the world’s best telescopes, we have discovered that this neutron star merger scattered heavy chemical elements, such as gold and platinum, out into space at high speeds.

These new results have significantly contributed to solving the long-debated mystery of the origin of elements heavier than iron in the periodic table."

From：BBC