Nov 2, 2024
Hubble watches neutron stars collide and explode to create black hole and ‘birth atoms’
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: cosmology, particle physics
“We can now see the moment where atomic nuclei and electrons are uniting in the afterglow,” team member Rasmus Damgaard, a researcher at the Cosmic DAWN Center, said in a statement. For the first time, we see the creation of atoms, we can measure the temperature of the matter, and we can see the microphysics in this remote explosion.”
“It is like admiring three cosmic background radiation surrounding us from all sides, but here, we get to see everything from the outside. We see before, during, and after the moment of birth of the atoms.”
Neutron stars are born when stars at least 8 times as massive as the sun exhaust their fuel for nuclear fusion and can no longer support themselves against their own gravity.