Researchers Recreate a Neutron Star Collision by Using X-Rays and Radio Signals

At the beginning of this year, researchers detected some mysterious radio signals coming from outer space. After a close analysis, they managed to strike down from the list the dark energy hypothesis, but discovered how gold came into being on our planet. While continuing the debate, they used these emissions, as well as gamma- and x-rays, to reconstruct a neutron star collision which occurred 130 million light-years away.

What produced the strange radio emissions?

The discovery of the strange gravitational waves left researchers baffled, as they couldn’t tell where they came from. They quickly revealed they were the result of a neutron star collision, and it was the first time when they spotted the effects of such an event. Similar collisions could have occurred before as well, but this was the first time when scientists detected one.

Soon after noticing the radio emissions, they discovered how the two stars left out x-rays and gamma-rays. They kept analyzing all these traces, and were shortly able to use all the data they collected to reconstruct the event.

The neutron star collision created a cocoon of radio signals and x-rays

At first, they thought the signals were the result of matter being spewed out at the moment of the neutron star collision. This would have created a directionless and structureless jet which came right out of the merger. However, if this really happened, then the radio signals and the rays had to gradually get fainter.

This didn’t happen, so researchers knew the neutron star collision took a different form. As the event occurred, it shot a rapid jet which got choked and produced a cocoon of both the rays and the signals. All the material traveled close to the speed of light, and everything was illustrated in a video. The phenomenon was also explained in a study published in the journal Nature.

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