Colliding neutron stars
ESA's Integral satellite recently played a crucial role in discovering the flash of gamma rays linked to the gravitational waves released by the collision of two neutron stars. On 17 August, a burst of gamma rays lit up in space for almost two seconds. It was promptly recorded by Integral and NASA's Fermi satellite. Such short gamma-ray bursts are not uncommon: Integral catches about 20 every year. But this one was special: just seconds before the two satellites saw the blast, an entirely different instrument was triggered on Earth. One of the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) experiment, in the USA, recorded the passage of gravitational waves - fluctuations in the fabric of spacetime caused by powerful cosmic events. "This is a ground-breaking discovery, revealing for the first time gravitational waves and highly energetic light released by the same cosmic source," says Erik Kuulkers, Integral project scientist at ESA.
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