Meet a special gravitational wave. Born from the collision of two neutron stars over a billion years ago, it traveled across the Universe to finally reach Earth. The birth of this gravitational wave came with a burst of light, an event known as a bright siren, and is helping scientists to uncover the Universe’s secrets.
Cosmic Waves zine. Image credit: C. Machado
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Text: Dr. Maria E. S. Pereira (maria.sp@mail.com)
Illustration, Layout and Text: Dr. Camila Machado (hi.camilamachado@gmail.com)
Editing (English version): Stephanie Fernandes
Translation (German version): Jasmin Neumann
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank everyone who have contributed with the zine, by reviewing or giving suggestions at the various stages of the project. In particular, we thank: J. Neumann, F. Kling, Z. Savitsky, D. T. Martins, S. Acharya, B. Biswas, S. Casura, P. Jakobus, J. Knoche, T. Kupfer, R. A. Miret, W. Schmidt, W. Shaqil.
This project was sponsored by the Claussen Simon Stiftung with support of the Hamburg University and the Hamburg Research Academy.
References
- LIGO documentary on the gravitational wave’s discovery
- About the gravitational wave detectors:
- About GW170817:
- Papers on the detection of GW170817:
- 2017 Nobel Prize annoucement
- Kilonova
- Hubble constant
- Author’s outreach article on using bright & dark sirens to study the expansion of the Universe