The event was monitored by the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite and several National Science Foundation radio telescopes.
When the two neutron stars collided, scientists observed the ejection of a jet of matter that flew through space at seven times the speed of light. This phenomenon, known as superluminal speed, which, despite its name, is actually an illusion, writes Science Alert.
It was noted that even after its speed was adjusted, the jet was insanely fast.
“Our result shows that at the time of launch, the jet was moving at a speed of at least 99.97% of the speed of light,” said astronomer Wenbin Lu of the University of California at Berkeley.
The data was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, which performed a series of observations 8 days later and again about 159 days after the merger observed here on Earth in August 2017.
By combining their data, researchers can develop a type of measurement called very long baseline interferometry (VLBI).
Based on these observations and months of analysis, a team led by astronomer Kunal Muli at the California Institute of Technology first identified and then tracked the motion of a jet formed when two superdense stellar cores collide.
“Superluminal motion occurs when an object approaches us at a high enough speed, very close to our line of sight. As an object moves closer, the distance required for its light to reach us decreases – something we cannot generally need to be considered. in our daily lives, where light seems to move instantaneously,” experts said.
Recall that early French astronomers, using new data from the Gaia space telescope, mapped the life of the Sun and learned how its history would end.
The speed of light is captured with an ultra-fast camera
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Source: korrespondent
