Astronomers Strike Gravitational Gold In Colliding Neutron Stars (npr.org)

For the first time, scientists have caught two neutron stars in the act of colliding, revealing that these strange smash-ups are the source of heavy elements such as gold and platinum. From a report: The discovery, announced today at a news conference and in scientific reports written by some 3,500 researchers, solves a long-standing mystery about the origin of these heavy elements -- which are found in everything from wedding rings to cellphones to nuclear weapons. It's also a dramatic demonstration of how astrophysics is being transformed by humanity's newfound ability to detect gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time that are created when massive objects spin around each other and finally collide. "It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful it makes me want to cry. It's the fulfillment of dozens, hundreds, thousands of people's efforts, but it's also the fulfillment of an idea suddenly becoming real," says Peter Saulson of Syracuse University, who has spent more than three decades working on the detection of gravitational waves. Albert Einstein predicted the existence of these ripples more than a century ago, but scientists didn't manage to detect them until 2015. Until now, they'd made only four such detections, and each time the distortions in space-time were caused by the collision of two black holes. That bizarre phenomenon, however, can't normally be seen by telescopes that look for light. Neutron stars, by contrast, spew out visible cosmic fireworks when they come together. These incredibly dense stars are as small as cities like New York and yet have more mass than our sun. Further reading: 'A New Rosetta Stone for Astronomy' (The Atlantic), and Gravitational Wave Astronomers Hit Mother Lode (Scientific American).

Comments

Created a black hole?

[jfdavis668]

I can't seem to find the result of the collision in any of the articles. Did they merge to form a black hole or a larger neutron star?

Re:It's like Louis Pasteur said:

[hey!]

I'd argue that the thing that really separates our society from all other advanced civilizations in the past is our unique mastery of chemistry. The Romans were extremely good at engineering, and over the course of a thousand years developed some excellent recipes for materials like steel and concrete; but they had no idea what they were doing on a fundamental level; they were stumbling along blindly through stubborn trial and error.

The significance of chemistry is often overlooked by geeks; physics, math and computer science have more geek cachet. But if you look around, nothing shapes our world more. And the thing is, chemistry only became chemistry when it turned away from the practical concern of creating gold to the impractical one of understanding the universe.

If, like many people, you need an analogy to understand this, think of science as like going to the gym. The things you do in the gym are pointless; what gets you through them initially is the useful strength you hope to take away from the gym. But that never sustains anyone for long. The people who obtain the benefits of the gym are the ones who end up doing it for its own sake.

A society that does not pursue science for its own sake is inherently weak. It could not respond to a challenge like Puerto Rico if it wanted to. And it certainly has no power to withstand a more advanced society.

Re:It's like Louis Pasteur said:

[hey!]

Don't forget the key role chemistry played in developing electrical technologies.

Both Faraday and Volta were chemists; Faraday started his career as an assistant in Humphrey Davies' lab, where he discovered benzene and explored the synthesis of chlorine compounds. His electromagnetism work stemmed from experiments with constructing voltaic piles (electric batteries), devices which had no practical application yet. Absent the idle curiosity inspired by making severed frog legs twitch or transforming water into volatile gasses, nobody would ever have gained the understanding electricity and magnetism they needed to develop electric motors and generators.