Date: 5/07/2018 22:16:15
From: Tau.Neutrino
ID: 1248908
Subject: Beam of light from first confirmed neutron star merger emerge from behind sun

Beam of light from first confirmed neutron star merger emerge from behind sun

Astronomers had to wait over 100 days for the sight of the first of confirmed neutron star merger to reemerge from behind the glare of the sun.

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Date: 6/07/2018 02:39:48
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 1248977
Subject: re: Beam of light from first confirmed neutron star merger emerge from behind sun

Tau.Neutrino said:


Beam of light from first confirmed neutron star merger emerge from behind sun

Astronomers had to wait over 100 days for the sight of the first of confirmed neutron star merger to reemerge from behind the glare of the sun.

more…

Yeah. Darn Sun gets in the way all the time. That’s why we need a space telescope that can see closer to the Sun. 100 days means a blind spot of radius 55 degrees or more.

> It was at that point that the University of Warwick research team were able to use the Hubble Space Telescope to see the star was still generating a powerful beam of light

Hubble, yes. That can’t see close to the Sun.

> now we see a jet of material, ejected at an angle to us, but at almost of the speed of light.

A high speed jet from a neutron star merger. That’s interesting.

> If we’d looked straight down this beam we’d have seen a really powerful burst of gamma-ray. This means that it is quite likely that every neutron star that mergers actually creates a gamma-ray burst, but we only see a small fraction of them because the jet doesn’t line up all that often.

:)

> As the afterglow brightens

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