CXC: Kin of Gravitational-Wave Source Discovered (GRB 150101B)

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CXC: Kin of Gravitational-Wave Source Discovered (GRB 150101B)

Post by bystander » Tue Oct 16, 2018 5:37 pm

All in the Family: Kin of Gravitational-Wave Source Discovered
NASA | MSFC | SAO | Chandra X-ray Observatory | 2018 Oct 16
A distant cosmic relative to the first source that astronomers detected in both gravitational waves and light may have been discovered, as reported in our latest press release. This object, called GRB 150101B, was first detected by identified as a gamma ray burst (GRB) by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in January 2015.

This image shows data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple in the inset boxes) in context with an optical image of GRB 150101B from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The detection and follow-up observations with Chandra, Hubble, the Discovery Channel Telescope, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and other telescopes show GRB 150101B shares remarkable similarities to the neutron star merger and gravitational wave source discovered by Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its European counterpart Virgo in 2017 known as GW170817. In this view of GRB 150101B and its host galaxy, the Chandra field of view is outlined as a box on an optical and infrared image from the Hubble Space Telescope. Chandra images are included from two different times (labeled in the insets) to show how the X-ray source faded with time.

The latest study concludes that these two separate objects may, in fact, be related. The discovery suggests that events like GW170817 and GRB 150101B could represent a whole new class of erupting objects that turn on and off in X-rays and might actually be relatively common. ...

Kin of Gravitational Wave Source Discovered
University of Maryland, College Park | CMNS | 2018 Oct 16

New observations suggest that kilonovae—immense cosmic explosions that produce silver, gold and platinum—may be more common than thought.

A Luminous Blue Kilonova and an Off-Axis Jet from a Compact Binary Merger at z = 0.1341 ~ E. Troja et al
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