(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Top Comments: Fast Radio Burst Correlated to Neutron Star Collision [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-02 Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find! Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are a phenomenon discovered in 2007, where a short pulse of electromagnetic energy in the radio wave range is detected by radio telescopes. Observed FRBs have had durations ranging from a millisecond to three seconds. By the time they reach the Earth, they have very low intensity, but when the burst is traced back to its source, the extrapolated energy output of the FRB can be as much as the entire energy output of the Sun over the course of three days. Some FRBs appear to be recurring while others are one-offs. Regardless, while some astrophysicists have inklings, nobody knows for sure what causes them, and, in fact, it is likely that there is more than one type of cosmic phenomenon that could produce them. One such inkling is collisions between two neutron stars. Knowing that gravitational wave detectors have observed neutron star collisions, researchers combed through records of the LIGO detectors to look for coincidences between gravitational wave detection and an FRB. They found one. The LIGO facility in Louisiana detected a neutron star collision event on April 25, 2019, while the FRB was detected from the same region of the sky about two-and-a-half hours later. “We’re 99.5 percent sure” the two signals came from the same event, says astrophysicist Alexandra Moroianu, who spotted the merger and its aftermath while at the University of Western Australia in Perth. “We want to be 99.999 percent sure.” Because the neutron star merger was only detected by one of the LIGO instruments, triangulation could not be performed, so the precise location of the event is not well-established. Even though the gravitational wave was picked up only by the LIGO detector in Livingston, La., the team spotted other suggestive signs that the signals were related. The FRB and the gravitational waves came from the same distance, about 370 million light-years from Earth. The gravitational waves were from the only neutron star merger LIGO spotted in that observing run, and the FRB was particularly bright. There may even have been a burst of gamma rays at the same time, according to satellite data — another aftereffect of a neutron star merger. “Everything points at this being a very interesting combination of signals,” Moroianu says. She says it’s like watching a crime drama on TV: “You have so much evidence that anyone watching the TV show would be like, ‘Oh, I think he did it.’ But it’s not enough to convince the court.” More evidence is needed to confirm that this event was a FRB source, but if it is confirmed, we will know for certain at least one source for these mysterious events. Comments are below the fold. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/2/2161736/-Top-Comments-Fast-Radio-Burst-Correlated-to-Neutron-Star-Collision Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/