Ever wonder what happens beyond what you can see?
The universe is a big, scary thing. Between dark matter and dark energy, and how our galaxy has already lived and died, it contains a whole lot we don’t understand. That puts into perspective the tip of the iceberg that is our universe. That’s what I love about exploring stories like these: the fact that some of these number and energy outputs are in ranges unfathomable shows how significant they are. This week I will do my best to get to the basic idea of this story about colliding neutron stars and the release of such magnificent power, with my enthusiasm making up the remainder of the unknown.
It begins with a prologue of sorts. A couple years ago, gravitational waves were discovered! What are gravitational waves you ask? Through intense observation via laser detectors, astronomers have figured out that they are when two celestial bodies of immense magnitude, such as white dwarfs or neutron stars, or black holes, collide with each other. The gravitational and energy output is so large that it sends ripples through space time! This is a big deal, more so because it was Einstein who first predicted their existence, and all these years later, he was proven right!
“This is probably the most exciting episode of my professional career.”
Saul Teukolsky, NPR, 2015
Jump to two years ago, and another one of these events has taken place in the form of two neutron stars colliding and exploding. Neutron stars are dead cores of massive stars, reduced to a singularity, holding tremendous weight. Their explosions release light, making them detectable, as opposed to black holes which due to them sucking up any trace of light, are undetectable through normal observations. It’s estimated that this particular pair of neutron stars spent 11 billion years circling one another before slamming into each other 130 million years ago.
Not only did the collision release gravitational waves, but it also revealed that the impact released huge amounts of gold and platinum. Like, so much gold and platinum. Like, 200 earth masses of gold and 500 earth masses of platinum (to put that in perspective, our earth mass is 5.972 x 10^24 kg).
“It starts out small, about the size of a small city, but it’s moving so fast- a few tenths of the speed of light- that after a day its a cloud the size of a solar system.”
Daniel Kasen, theoretical astrophysicist, University of California
The above quote is my favorite because I think it really puts into detail the powers that are at work in the fathoms of space. It’s one thing to imagine a pile of dynamite exploding, or seeing something like a car blow up in a movie. But the explosion between two singularities colliding into each other? It shook the fabric of space time itself! That is extraordinary! And coincidentally, some of the elements that comprise our world are found within these extraordinary events. Coincidence? I think not.
It's All Out There 