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Spectacular Collision Of Two Neutron Stars Observed For First Time

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Last week, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) teased news of an “unprecedented discovery.” Now, the organization has revealed that, for the first time ever, astronomers have observed both gravitational waves and light produced by the same event. “This discovery is significant because it gives us two completely different ways to view the same thing,” Brian Koberlein, astrophysicist and Senior Lecturer at Rochester Institute of Technology, explained to Futurism. “Imagine trying to follow a detective show if you could just hear the show without video, or just see the show without hearing it. When you combine the two you get the whole picture.”

Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime that were first theorized by Albert Einstein about a century ago. Last year marked the first time we’ve been able to observe the phenomena, and so far, all the gravitational waves we’ve observed have been caused by particularly intense events, such as the merging of neutron stars. This type of merger has also been considered the most likely cause of short gamma ray bursts, cosmic explosions that emit massive amounts of light.

On August 17, 2017, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) caught evidence of gravitational waves passing over Earth — only the fifth time such a detection has been made. Just two seconds later, both NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the ESA’s International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratorydetected a short gamma-ray burst in a similar region of the sky. This quick succession led the researchers to believe the gravitational waves and light were caused by a single event.

Scientists have long suspected that the merger of two neutron stars would be followed by a kilonova, an explosive occurrence some 1,000 times brighter than a standard nova. They speculated that the near-simultaneous observations of gravitational waves and a gamma ray burst could indicate that such an event was taking place, and subsequent study by ESO facilities indicates that this was the case: a kilonova had finally been observed.

VIMOS image of galaxy NGC 4993 showing the visible-light counterpart to a merging neutron star pair. Image Credit: ESO/A.J. Levan, N.R. Tanvir

“I had never seen anything like it,” Stephen Smartt, who led observations with the ESO’s New Technology Telescope, said in an ESO press release. “Our data, along with data from other groups, proved to everyone that this was not a supernova or a foreground variable star, but was something quite remarkable.”

No single facility was responsible for this breakthrough discovery — it was truly a collaborative effort. A large swathe of sky containing millions of stars needed to be monitored after the initial detection of the gravitational waves and light, so a host of different facilities were called into action.

Paranal Observatory’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope and VLT Survey Telescope, La Silla Observatory’s Rapid Eye Mount telescope, Las Cumbres Observatory’s LCO 0.4-meter telescope, and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory’s Dark Energy Camera were all used to observe further developments.

The Swope 1-meter telescope at Cerro Las Campanas was the first to spot a new point of light appearing close to the lenticular galaxy designated NGC 4993. This point of light was monitored by the Pan-STARRS telescope and the Subaru telescope in Hawaii overnight. Even more observatories and telescopes would study the event over the following couple of weeks.

“ESO’s great strength is that it has a wide range of telescopes and instruments to tackle big and complex astronomical projects, and at short notice,” said Andrew Levan, lead author of one of the papers. “We have entered a new era of multi-messenger astronomy!”

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity and brevity.

References: ESO, arXiv

Remarkable Image Captures Surface Details of a Dying Star Located 530 Light-Years Away

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The surface of the red giant star Π¹ Gruis from PIONIER on the VLT. Credit: ESO

"This is the first time that we have such a giant star that is unambiguously imaged with that level of details," said Fabien Baron, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Georgia State University. "The reason is there's a limit to the details we can see based on the size of the telescope used for the observations.

An international team of astronomers has produced the first detailed images of the surface of a giant star, named π1Gruis, outside our solar system, revealing a nearly circular, dust-free atmosphere with complex areas of moving material, known as convection cells or granules, according to a recent study.

The giant star, named π1Gruis, is one of the stars in the constellation Grus (Latin for the crane, a type of bird), which can be observed in the southern hemisphere. An evolved star in the last major phase of life, π1Gruis is 350 times larger than the Sun and resembles what our Sun will become at the end of its life in five billion years. Studying this star gives scientists insight about the future activity, characteristics and appearance of the Sun.

Convection, the transfer of heat due to the bulk movement of molecules within gases and liquids, plays a major role in astrophysical processes, such as energy transport, pulsation and winds. The Sun has about two million convective cells that are typically 2,000 kilometers across, but theorists believe giant and supergiant stars should only have a few large convective cells because of their low surface gravity. Determining the convection properties of most evolved and supergiant stars, such as the size of granules, has been challenging because their surfaces are frequently obscured by dust.

An illustration of the structure of the Sun and a red giant star, showing their convective zones. These are the granular zones in the outer layers of the stars. Credit: ESO

For this paper, the team used an interferometer. The light from several telescopes is combined to overcome the limit of each telescope, thus achieving a resolution equivalent to that of a much larger telescope.

The star π1Gruis was observed with the PIONIER instrument, which has four combined telescopes, in Chile in September 2014. Baron, who specializes in making images, used interferometric data, image reconstruction software and algorithms to compose images of the star's surface. Interferometry is relatively new to astronomy, and Georgia State's Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy array was the first facility to use interferometry to image a star similar to the Sun in 2007.

"These images are important because the size and number of granules on the surface actually fit very well with models that predict what we should be seeing," Baron said. "That tells us that our models of stars are not far from reality. We're probably on the right track to understand these kinds of stars."

The detailed images also showed different colors on the star's surface, which correspond to varying temperatures. A star doesn't have the same surface temperature throughout, and its surface provides our only clues to understand its internals. As temperatures rise and fall, the hotter, more fluid areas become brighter colors (such as white) and the cooler, more dense areas become darker colors (such as red).

In the future, the researchers would like to make even more detailed images of the surface of giant stars and follow the evolution of these granules continuously, instead of only getting snapshot images.

Further Reading: Georgia State University, ESO, Nature

Astronomers Have Just Made An Incredible Discovery In The Constellation Of Orion

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Image: The Orion Nebula shines in this VLT Survey Telescope image. ESO/G. Beccari

A group of astronomers has just made an unexpected discovery within the constellation of Orion. “Checking out the data for the first time was one of those ‘Wow!’ moments that appear only once or twice in an astronomer’s lifetime.”

Experts have discovered, thanks to new observations from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) VLT scanning telescope, three different groups of young stars within the Orion nebula cluster. In fact, astronomers have discovered stars in three different ages.

The European Southern Observatory is considered the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organization in Europe and the world’s most productive astronomical observatory.

The new images provided by the European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescopegave experts an opportunity to measure the brightness and different colors of stars located in the Orion Nebula Cluster, courtesy of the telescope’s OmergaCAM—a massive wide field optical camera.

“Observing the data for the first time was one of those ‘Wow!’ moments that occur only once or twice in an astronomer’s lifetime” says ESO astronomer Giacomo Beccari. The incredible quality of the OmegaCAM images has shown without any doubt that we were observing three distinct populations of stars in the central parts of the constellation of Orion.”

Astronomers usually refer to it as M42, and it is exactly there, where stars are born. This makes the Orion constellation one of the most prominent star formations in the night sky. The three main stars of Orion as viewed from Earth are Rigel, Alnitak, and Mintaka.

Rigel, Orion’s brightest star is located a staggering 773 light-years away. Alnitak is found around 800 light years away from us and is believed to be 100,000 times more luminous than our Sun. Mintaka is the one located 915 light years away from us. It is 90,000 times more luminous than the Sun and is in fact a double star formation: the two orbit each other every 5.73 days.

Monika Petr-Gotzens, the co-author and also based at ESO Garching, continues, “This is a very important result. What we are observing is that the stars of a cluster at the start of their lives didn’t form collectively together. This may mean that our knowledge of how stars form in clusters needs to be modified.”

Astronomers also call Orion the Stellar nursery as it has many star forming areas. In this research, astronomers looked at the stars’ masses and ages.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) writes: “It indicates that star formation might progress in bursts, where each burst happens on a much faster time-scale than we previously believed.”

Astronomers analyzed the possibility that instead of showing different ages, the different brightness and colors the spotted of the stars were due to hidden companion suns—which may be responsible for making stars appear brighter and redder than they actually are.

However, if this is proven to be accurate, it would dictate quite unusual properties of the stars, something that has never before been observed.

Experts indicate how they’ve found that based on rotation speeds and spectra, the stars must have different ages.

“Although we cannot yet officially disprove the possibility that these stars are binary stars, it seems much more natural to believe that what we are observing are three generations of stars that formed in succession, within less than three million years,” concludes Beccari.

Beccari and her colleagues published a study on the findings in the August issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics, titled “A tale of three cities: OmegaCAM discovers multiple sequences in the color magnitude diagram of the Orion Nebula Cluster.”

(H/T ESO)

Image: Images are official NASA's APODs.

This 9-Gigapixel Image—With 84 MILLION Stars—Of The Milky Way Will Give You Goosebumps

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Have you ever seen a 9-gigapixel map of the Milky Way Galaxy? The jaw-dropping image contains around 84 million stars and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The original image has 24.6 gigabytes. How would I define it? COSMIC LOVE.

This is just one SMALL part of the massive 9-gigapixel image. Image credit ESO.

The image below shows a breathtaking view of the core of our galaxy, the Milky Way, as seen by the VISTA telescope from the European Space Agency.

With the naked eye, you’d probably see the center of the Milky Way—with countless stars and cosmic dust clouds—occupying a small patch of a few inches.

However, thanks to the VISTA telescope we got one of the most detail portraits of the Milky Way EVER produced which has allowed astronomers to catalog a staggering 84 million stars.

After seeing this image, ask yourself... Are we alone in the Milky Way?

The above image is just a small, reduced—thumbnail version of the original image which has a mind-boggling resolution of 108,500×81,500—or if you prefer 9 giga-pixels, occupying 24.6 gigabytes. If for some reason you want to download the 24.6-gigabyte image you can do so by clicking here.

Check out the ENTIRE 9-gigapixel image—and zoom in on those stars—by clicking here. This image is simply too big to be displayed at full resolution and is best appreciated using the zoom tool.

In order to obtain this image, ESO’s VISTA telescope—which stands for Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy—snapped thousands of images of the sky after which astronomers compiled them into one 9 giga-pixel mosaic. The Vista telescope is one of the LARGEST visible and near infrared telescopes on the planet, and it just showed us how cool it really is which this mind-bending image.

The image you are seeing is crystal clear because the VISTA telescope boasts a stunning infrared camera which enables it to peer through the dust clouds that obscure the view of other telescopes.

In order to understand how powerful the VISTA telescope really is, here below is a comparison between an image of the Milky Way—the same image—as seen from an infrared telescope and a visible telescope.

Pretty amazing right ? Just imagine what else is out there? The Milky Way galaxy is really unique, it’s beautiful and this image makes you love our cosmic home even more, right?

But this image wasn’t taken just for aesthetic purposes. In fact, this massive image has allowed scientists and astronomers to identify numerous cosmic objects in space that are worth researching further. This image allowed astronomers to identify 84 million stars in the Milky Way.

Our cosmic home—the Milky Way—is part of a supermassive structure interconnected by over 800 galaxies located at around 1000 million light years away. Our galaxy is part of an intergalactic highway that stretches some 500 million light years across and contains around 100,000,000,000,000,000 Suns, dubbed by scientists as Laniakea.

Oh and, just a fun fact here, did you know that astronomers maintain that there are around 500 billion galaxies in the known universe, which means there are around 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (5×1022) habitable planets. Astronomers argue that just inside our Milky Way Galaxy, there are some 400 BILLION STARS.

Image credit: ESO

Another Earth Found Just 11 Light Years Could Be Galaxy's 'Best Bet For Alien Life'

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A new Earth-sized planet located only 11 light years away from our Solar System has just been detected by astronomers at the Earth Science Observatory or ESO. The newly discovered exoplanet, which has been designated Ross 128 b, is the closest one found orbiting an inactive red dwarf star, increasing the chances of the planet hosting alien life. The exoplanet was found by a team of scientists using the planet-hunting HARPS instrument. Scientists estimate that the newly discovered exoplanet likely has temperatures similar to Earth. After Proxima b, Ross 128 b is the second closest temperate planet to be found.

"Ross 128 b will be a prime target for ESO's Extremely Large Telescope, which will be able to search for biomarkers in the planet's atmosphere," the ESO said in a statement.

The exoplanet has been named after its host star – Ross 128 – which it orbits every 9.9 days. Scientists found that the exoplanet orbits Ross 128 around 20 times closer than the Earth orbits the Sun. Interestingly, in June, astronomers detected mysterious signals coming from Ross 128.

According to the ESO, red dwarf stars are some of the "coolest, faintest and most common" stars in the Universe, which make them the best targets for astronomers to search for when hunting potential alien worlds.

"In fact, lead author Xavier Bonfils (Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble – Université Grenoble-Alpes/CNRS, Grenoble, France), named their HARPS programme The shortcut to happiness, as it is easier to detect small cool siblings of Earth around these stars, than around stars more similar to the Sun," the ESO explained.

Unlike most other red dwarf stars including Proxima Centuri, which occasionally experience flares that in turn expose their orbiting planets to deadly ultraviolet and X-ray radiation, Ross 128 in comparison is much a "quieter" star. This may help Ross 128 b's chances of being the closest known "comfortable abode for possible life".

Scientists say that Ross 128 is slowly moving closer toward our Solar System and is expected to become our "nearest stellar neighbour in just 79,000 years – a blink of the eye in cosmic terms". When this eventually happens, Ross 128 b will usurp Proxima b's position as the Earth's closest exoplanet.

However, despite scientists' belief that Ross 128 b is likely a temperate exoplanet, there appears to be some uncertainty as to whether the planet lies within the habitable zone.

Ross 128 b's location – either inside, outside or on the edge of the habitable zone – could determine whether the planet's surface could contain liquid water.

The findings of this research are slated to appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Via IBTimes

A Never-Before-Seen, 167-Million Pixel Map of the Milky Way

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From Garching near Munich, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have published a new picture of the Milky Way, sharper and more detailed than any other image before it, with a staggering 167 million pixels.

Taking advantage of the unique and irreplaceable characteristics of the Telescope, the Atlasgal survey managed to come up with a detailed view of the distribution of cold dense has along the galactic plane of the Milky Way, noted for being the place where he majority of a galaxy’s mass lies.

The breathtaking image of the Milky Way was taken with the APEX (Atacama Pathfinder Experiment) telescope in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The publication on Wednesday celebrated the completion of the full mapping of the galactic plane from the southern hemisphere, a European project called ESO ATLASGAL (Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy).

The Apex has allowed astronomers to study the cold universe, gas and dust and other cosmic objects that are only a few tens of degrees above absolute zero.

Located at 5100 meters above sea level on the Chajnantor Plateau in Chile’s Atacama region, is the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope. The altitude and extremely dry atmosphere make the Atacama region in Chile a prime site for astronomers who look at the sky, in hopes of answering many enigmas behind our origins and purpose on this planet.

According to reports from the European Space Agency’s website, “The ATLASGAL survey took advantage of the unique characteristics of the telescope to provide a detailed view of the distribution of cold dense gas along the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. The new image includes most of the regions of star formation in the southern Milky Way”.

The APEX telescope in Chile has mapped the full area of the Galactic Plane visible from the southern hemisphere at submillimetre wavelengths — between infrared light and radio waves. This is the sharpest such map yet made, and complements those from recent space-based surveys. The pioneering 12-metre APEX telescope allows astronomers to study the cold Universe: gas and dust only a few tens of degrees above absolute zero.

The region seen in the breathtaking image is of particular interest for astronomers as it includes numerous areas of star formation. The process that lasted for three years covers 420 square degrees of the sky, with each image tile having a resolution of 3.5 megapixels.

‘Atlasgal maps the dust, which traces the hydrogen, but there are many other elements out there, which is why we are following up with other observations using Apex and other telescopes,’ said Carlos De Breuck, ESO APEX Programme Scientist from Germany.

To browse the entire image (at a resolution of 167 million pixels), please visit the following link by clicking –> here

Scientists Just Made a First Ever Observation of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity

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