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Artist’s illustration of two merging neutron stars. Astronomers witnessed such a merger in August 2017, and we're now trying to interpret these observations. [University of Warwick/Mark Garlick]

By Susanna Kohler on 13 April 2018

Now that the hubbub of GW170817 — the first coincident detection of gravitational waves and an electromagnetic signature — has died down, scientists are left with the task of taking the spectrum-spanning observations and piecing them together into a coherent picture. Researcher Iair Arcavi examines one particular question: what caused the blue color in the early hours of the neutron-star merger?

 

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