neutron star merger produced a bit of gold and platinum

[Shiraz (Ray)]

"200 Earth masses of pure gold, and maybe 500 Earth masses of platinum"

estimate of how much precious metal is mixed in the cloud of radioactive matter spewing out from the merger.

then there is the 2 second delay from the GW to the gamma ray burst....

. how good to be alive to see this astonishing event!! Cheers Ray

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-astron...us-metals.html

[markbakovic]

Originally Posted by Shiraz

then there is the 2 second delay from the GW to the gamma ray burst....

I know, right? At first I was all "so was the GRB just released later? bubble through dense plasma a la the sun? or..." then I realised a)no, the peak of the chirp is the conversion of matter to energy, this it IS the GRB and b) a neutron star has no dense layers of dissociated ions like the sun, it's all neutrons (clue's in the name) so that means... "or..."

[Shiraz (Ray)]

I guess that the delay should tell some interesting stuff about the intergalactic medium - being able to measure a 2 second effect after a 130,000,000 year process is pretty amazing.

[torsion (Bram)]

Originally Posted by Shiraz

I guess that the delay should tell some interesting stuff about the intergalactic medium - being able to measure a 2 second effect after a 130,000,000 year process is pretty amazing.

Well, with this delay and the source distance (obtained from the GW detection) one can determine that the speed of gravitational waves and the speed of light are the same to about 1e-15, which show that the intergalactic medium dispersion has negligible effects on the photons [1]. E.g. the speed of gravitational waves and the speed of light are pretty much the same.

cheers,
Bram

[1] http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...41-8213/aa920c

[Eratosthenes (Peter)]

Gold and Platinum are not the only elements forged in this energetic cosmic collision. (Personally I am interested in the amount of Bismuth and Chromium formed. I like things that have a chrome finish)