GW170817
GW170817 was a gravitational wave (GW) observed by the LIGO and Virgo detectors on 17 August 2017, originating within the shell elliptical galaxy NGC 4993, about 140 million light years away. The wave was produced by the last moments of the inspiral of a binary pair of neutron stars, ending with their merger. It is the first GW detection to be definitively correlated with any electromagnetic observation.
Key facts
- Astronomical event.epoch
- J2000.0
- Astronomical event.distance
- 144 million ly
- Astronomical event.detected_by
- LIGO, Virgo
- Astronomical event.event_type
- Gravitational wave
- Astronomical event.name
- GW170817
- Astronomical event.redshift
- 0.0099
- Astronomical event.host
- NGC 4993
- Astronomical event.discovery
- 144 million years ago (detected 17 August 2017, 12:41:04.4 UTC)
- Astronomical event.duration
- 1 minute and 40 seconds
- Astronomical event.progenitor
- 2 neutron stars
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
12 sectionsContents
- Announcement
- Gravitational wave detection
- Gamma ray detection
- Electromagnetic follow-up
- Other detectors
- Astrophysical origin and products
- Scientific importance
- Retrospective comparisons
- See also
- Notes
- References
- External links
GW170817 was a gravitational wave (GW) observed by the LIGO and Virgo detectors on 17 August 2017, originating within the shell elliptical galaxy NGC 4993, about 140 million light years away. The wave was produced by the last moments of the inspiral of a binary pair of neutron stars, ending with their merger. It is the first GW detection to be definitively correlated with any electromagnetic observation.
Unlike the five prior GW detections—which were of merging black holes and thus not expected to have detectable electromagnetic signals—the aftermath of this merger was seen across the electromagnetic spectrum by 70 observatories on 7 continents and in space, marking a significant breakthrough for multi-messenger astronomy. The discovery and subsequent observations of GW170817 were given the Breakthrough of the Year award for 2017 by the journal Science.