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Neutron stars collision: Australian science reacts – as it happened

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Australia’s chief scientist Alan Finkel leads a panel discussing the extraordinary astronomical event witnessed for the first time

New frontier for science as astronomers witness neutron stars colliding

Gravitational wave observation is astronomical alchemy

 Updated 
Mon 16 Oct 2017 18.52 EDTFirst published on Mon 16 Oct 2017 17.44 EDT
Neutron stars
An illustration of the collision between two neutron stars. Photograph: A Simonnet/AFP/Getty Images
An illustration of the collision between two neutron stars. Photograph: A Simonnet/AFP/Getty Images

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Key events

A journalist asks why observation in radio waves is so significant.

Tara Murphy explains: the radio emissions come from the shock as it passes through the gas and dust from the merger. “So you can build up a forensic picture of what the enviroment was like around the merger.”

A journalist asks what the significance is of no neutrinos being detected from the merger. Bailes explains that it probably did create a lot of neutrinos but they are hard to detect. “I’m absolutely convinced that neutrinos were generated but you need a cubic kilometre of ice,” he says – to detect even a small number.

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Tara Murphy explains that having three detectors online now measuring the same event meant the researchers could more closely detect the location of the event, allowing astronomers to point their telescopes at it to observe it in the electromagnetic spectrum.

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Matthew Bailes explains that if scientists can observe a lot of events like this, they will be able to better describe the rate at which the universe is expanding.

He argues that a detector built in Australia would help the international search.

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A journalist has asked what is meant by gold being generated in the merger.

Eric Thane explains that elements heavier than iron can’t be created in normal stars, and it remained a mystery where gold came from. But the glow from around this merger is an example of gold being created.

David Ottaway, OzGrav chief investigator at the University of Adelaide, is up now.

He says future gravitational wave detectors will be twice as powerful as the ones used today – and researchers in Australia are key to making that possible.

Ottaway is followed by Sue Thomas, CEO of the Australian Research Council , who opens the floor for questions.

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“We’ve been working around the clock for the last two months,” says Tara Murphy, CAASTRO (the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics) chief investigator at the University of Sydney. “We’ve been preparing for this for years.”

The radio waves we detect from the merger give us unique informaiton that we can’t get in any other way, Murphy says. It helps complete the picture of “extreme physics”, she explains.

She says ongoing observations will fill in gaps in our understanding.

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Eric Thrane, OzGrav data theme leader at Monash University, is up now.

He said they had been able to measure the masses of the two neutron stars – between 1.2 and 1.6 times the mass of our own sun. “A single teaspoon of neutron star matter weighs about a billion tonnes,” he says.

With all that matter, the electromagnetic spectrum had been “lit up” he said, saying the event will become known as the best measured astronomical event yet.

Thrane describes how the discovery solves the mystery of where gold comes from, with its creation not possible through more mundane astronomical events.

He says it’s amazing to think the gold in your wedding ring may have been forged in the furnace of the collision of two neutron stars.

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Scott explains that there have been four detections of gravitational waves from the collision of black holes.

But the collision of neutron stars, with all the extra data they can provide, was what researchers were searching for, she says.

“The age of multi-messenger astronomy has truly begun,” she said.

Prof Susan Scott, OzGrav chief Investigator at the Australian National University, is now at the podium.

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Summary

Prof Matthew Bailes – director of OzGrav (the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery) at Swinburne University of Technology – has taken the stage. He says he wanted OzGrav to inspire the next generation of scintists.

“Gravitational wave discovery is so difficult it is firmly in the realm of mega-science,” Bailes says. “Black holes have no hair and don’t leave astronomers with as much to look at.”

He says when he came across two neutron stars rotating around one another every eight minutes, which would collapse together in millions of years, he began a search for others that were closer to destruction.

“A neutron star pair that were impossibly compact entered the Ligo band,” he said. “The event hailed a new era in astronomy.

“The avalanche of science is unparalleled in modern astrophysics,” he said, pointing out there are more than a dozen papers today about the discovery.

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Alan Finkel has begun addressing the meeting.

He explains that when gravitational waves were discovered it was the result of the collision of two black holes. This time it was two neutron stars.

But this is the first time we were able to work out where in the sky it occurred, and astronomers were able to turn their telescopes towards it.

“It happened 130m years ago in a galaxy far far far away,” Finkel explains, before introducing the panel, who you can see in the previous post.

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The discussion will moderated by Australia’s chief scientist, Alan Finkel, and will involved the following Australian researchers:

  • Prof Matthew Bailes – director of OzGrav (the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery) at Swinburne University of Technology
  • Prof Susan Scott – OzGrav chief Iivestigator at the Australian National University
  • Assoc Prof David Ottaway – OzGrav chief Iinvestigator at the University of Adelaide
  • Dr Eric Thrane – OzGrav data theme leader at Monash University
  • Assoc Prof Tara Murphy – CAASTRO (the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics) chief investigator at the University of Sydney
  • Prof Sue Thomas – CEO of the Australian Research Council (ARC)
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The press conference will be starting shortly but, while you wait, why not go back and read the exciting discovery of the first direct detection of gravitational waves? Or our explainer: “Everything you need to know about gravitational waves.”

Are you left wondering “What does it even mean for there to be ripples in spacetime”? Well, then you could flip back through our Q&A between readers and the astrophysicist Katie Mack, who broke down last year’s discovery for us, question-by-question.

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Hailed as the dawn of a new era in astronomy, the source of gravitational waves have been “seen” for the first time. After ripples in the fabric of spacetime were detected by the US-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, astronomers all around the world set their sights on the source.

The immense collision of two neutron stars was then witnessed not just as gravitational waves, but also in light – in the optical, ultraviolet, infrared, x-ray and radio spectrums.

It has been described as “the most intensely observed astronomical event to date”.

Many Australian gravitational-wave hunters were centrally involved in the discovery. From 9am Sydney time, we’ll bring you live coverage from a special news briefing moderated by Australia’s chief scientist, Alan Finkel.

But to catch up, why not read our full story here:

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