{"id":8621,"date":"2017-10-16T14:33:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T18:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=8621"},"modified":"2017-10-16T14:33:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T18:33:48","slug":"gw170817-is-a-big-freaking-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=8621","title":{"rendered":"GW170817 is a big freaking deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today, a &#8220;multi-messenger&#8221; observation of a gravitational wave event was announced.<\/p>\n<p>This is a big freaking deal. This is a Really Big Freaking Deal. For the very first time, ever, we observed an event, the merger of two neutron stars, simultaneously using both gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves, the latter including light, radio waves, UV, X-rays, gamma rays.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8622\" style=\"width: 624px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/2041-8213\/aa91c9\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8622\" class=\"wp-image-8622 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/GW170817-multimessenger.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"614\" height=\"850\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/GW170817-multimessenger.jpg 614w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/GW170817-multimessenger-217x300.jpg 217w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8622\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From http:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/2041-8213\/aa91c9<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The significance of this observation must not be underestimated. For the first time, we have direct validation of a LIGO gravitational wave observation. It demonstrates that our interpretation of LIGO data is actually correct, as is our understanding of neutron star mergers; one of the most important astrophysical processes, as it is one of the sources of isotopes heavier than iron in the universe.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it&#8230; every time you hold, say, a piece of gold in your hands, you are holding something that was forged in an astrophysical event like this one billions of years ago.<\/p>\n<fb:like href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=8621' send='false' layout='button_count' show_faces='true' width='450' height='65' action='like' colorscheme='light' font='lucida grande'><\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, a &#8220;multi-messenger&#8221; observation of a gravitational wave event was announced. This is a big freaking deal. This is a Really Big Freaking Deal. For the very first time, ever, we observed an event, the merger of two neutron stars, simultaneously using both gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves, the latter including light, radio waves, UV, <a href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=8621' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-physics","category-20-id","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8621"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8624,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8621\/revisions\/8624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}