2 Neutron Stars Collided, So Are They a Black Hole Now?

Space.com ^ | October 16, 2017 | Harrison Tasoff,

[BenLurkin]

The observations indicate that the waves and light came from a pair of merging neutron stars about 130 million light-years away, according to a news conference on Monday Oct. 16, 2017. Neutron stars are the incredibly dense remnants of stars that have exploded in supernovas. The two that merged were 1.6 and 1.1 times as massive as our sun, but each was no wider than Washington, D.C., according to a statement by the Space Telescope Science Institute.

As the stars spiraled into each other, they sent gravitational waves through the universe and released tremendous amounts of light when they finally collided.

...

"We don't actually know what happened to the objects at the end," David Shoemaker, a senior research scientist at MIT and a spokesman for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, said at a news conference today (Oct. 16) at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. "We don't know whether it's a black hole, a neutron star or something else."

...

Eleonora Troja, a high-energy astrophysicist at the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, expressed a bit more confidence in what the new object may be. "[It's] very likely the collision of two neutron stars resulted in a new black hole," she said at the news conference.

Troja has good reason to believe the stars did form a black hole. Right after the gamma-rays and gravitational waves were detected on Earth, NASA's Swift Gamma-Ray Burst observatory, which orbits high above Earth, returned some interesting results: a bright source of ultraviolet light, but no X-rays. This was the first time in the Swift observatory's 13 years of working on the mission that it had come up empty-handed, according to Troja. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, and Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), also saw nothing in the X-ray spectrum.

[allendale]

So far far far away, it has no effect on earth. However the observation of this event by competent people, may advance science and mankind’s understanding of science and natural law.

[dangus]

>> However the observation of this event by competent people, may advance science and mankind’s understanding of science and natural law. <<

>> It has no effect on earth. <<

A rather amusing and juxtaposition of claims, don’t ya think? ;-)

[DannyTN]

The two that merged were 1.6 and 1.1 times as massive as our sun, but each was no wider than Washington, D.C"

Washington, D.C. is very dense.

[allendale]

Just add “ no physical effect on earth”. Although philosophically it can be argued that since information was sent and received, ultimately the event may have a physical effect on earth.

[njslim]

The two that merged were 1.6 and 1.1 times as massive as our sun, but each was no wider than Washington, D.C”

Washington, D.C. is very dense.

Wash DC is a black hole sucking in our money.....

[Joe Brower]

In astrophysics there is a number called the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit, which specifies how much mass must exist for a neutron star to collapse to the stage past that, which would be a singularity. This is about three stellar masses (a stellar mass is the mass of our own local star, Sol). Since the combined mass of these two objects was less than that, the answer would be no. Plus mass would be lost during the collision in the form of energy, which would reduce the combined mass even more.

However, if one of these objects was less than 1.4 stellar masses, then it would be a white dwarf, not a neutron star at all. This is called the Chandrasekhar Limit. Still quite dense, but not on the order of a neutron star.

Please bear in mind that I'm not a rocket scientist nor do I play one on TV. $:-)

[Hugin]

Black hole sun
Won’t you come
And wash away the rain...

[dangus]

Yup. Just having a little fun.