Earlier
this week, scientists at the world were stunned when a neutron star
merger (a kilonova) was observed for the first time in conjunction with
the discovery of gravitational waves from the same event. To celebrate
this milestone in astronomy, here are some of the stunning images of the
event:
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| The kilonova was spotted in the galaxy NGC 4993 by
the Hubble Space Telescope. The kilonova is visible as a golden-yellow
dot in this photo to the upper left of the very bright galactic centre . | |
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| A wider view of NGC 4993 was taken by the European Southern Observatory
using the Visible MultiObject Spectrography from its Very Large
Telescope. The kilonova explosion is visible here as the small, white
speck immediately above and to the left of the galaxy's centre. |
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| The kilonova visible in ultraviolet light. This photo was taken by
NASA’s Swift telescope using false colours from data extracted from
three ultraviolet filters. |
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| The kilonova observed by NASA's
Hubble and Chandra Observatory respectively. While Hubble saw optical
and infrared light from hot debris around the kilonova, Chandra saw an
X-ray afterglow. |
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| A composite image of the observations of multiple telescope managed by the European Southern Observatory.
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