Space is a scary place. The Hubble Space Telescope discovered a good example of this more than 5 years ago when two neutron stars collided creating an explosion so massive that its resulting jet stream traveled at more than 99.97% speed. the light.
The explosion, dubbed GW170817, was first observed in August 2017. However, NASA astronomers were only recently able to get a full view of what happened and publish a paper on their findings on the 12th of October in the magazine Nature. The study’s authors found that the resulting explosion was the equivalent of a supernova.
In one Press Release, NASA heralded the findings as a “major step forward” in the study of these intergalactic collisions. The findings are also remarkable because they combine the forces of 70 observatories around the world such as the Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) radio telescope as well as those in orbit such as Hubble. .
NASA said in a press release: “The amazing accuracy, obtained with the radio telescopes and Hubble, is needed to measure the orbit of the blob, which is equivalent to measuring the diameter of a pizza. 12 inches in diameter placed on the moon as seen from Earth,” NASA said in a press release.
Interestingly, there was a slight optical illusion that occurred when astronomers looked at the data. Measurements from Hubble show that the jet created by the explosion is indeed traveling at seven times the speed of light — which is impossible.
What were actually It happened that the jet was headed towards Earth and headed towards our planet. This creates the illusion that it is moving faster than it actually is.
Kunal P. Mooley, an astrophysicist at Caltech and lead author of the paper, said: “I was surprised that Hubble was able to provide us with such an accurate measurement, on par with that of the world. accuracy achieved by VLBI radio telescopes spread across the globe. release.
This discovery is another great example of how the world’s telescopes and satellites can work together and collaborate. It’s not like how new photos and findings from the James Webb Space Telescope are being enhanced by other orbiting observatories like Hubble or Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
Now if only we humans could learn to do the same…
