We observed the light coming from the merger of two neutron stars that was also detected in gravitational waves by
the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors.
This is a big deal because this is the first time it's ever been done.
Where we've been able to see the same event in gravitational waves and in light.
This is the equivalent of being able to both see and hear something for the first time.
So gravitational waves are these distortions of space and time. So,
you know the analogy that people like to make is if you throw a stone into a pond you really see the
deformations and the waves traveling around.
The only way that we have a chance of detecting it is it has to be the most extreme systems, things like
two black holes or two neutron stars that come, really, within
kilometers of each other and then merge.
It's only in those systems where we have a chance of detecting any gravitational waves.
And what we basically witnessed is the last minute or so of these spirals as these two objects
finally touch each other. They generate temperatures of billions of degrees
with the highest densities. And you know,
we believe that those are the ideal conditions to form the heaviest elements in the universe.
For the first time ever we have confirmation of that.
Leading up to the observations things were frantic.
We were you know making sure that everything was in line and
on the 9th image that we took, we found the the counterpart to the gravitational wave source.
The entire region was only up in the sky for about two hours and then it set.
It was really that hard work to prepare for that made Ryan's team come on top
and be the first one ever to detect an optical light from one of the sources.
Our team is a relatively small, young and diverse group
where more than half of the people on our team are what we call junior people,
people who are graduate students or post-docs.
When we made the observations
I think I was the one who was the most excited and in the moment. Everybody else was working very hard.
We've learned things that seemed pretty soon like
binary and neutron star mergers produce gravitational waves, they produce gamma ray bursts,
they produce this light afterwards that we call a kilanova. Those are simple.
More complicated is we've been able to analyze the light,
been able to determine that in the the event itself
we produced the heaviest elements in the universe. So,
things like platinum and gold were produced in this event.
This one event is really a bonanza of science.
