Gravitational waves  bleed away orbital energy, causing the stars to move closer together and merge
As the stars collide, some of the debris blasts away in particle jets moving at nearly the speed of light, producing a brief burst of gamma rays (magenta)
An outflow driven by accretion onto the merger remnant emits rapidly fading ultraviolet light  (violet)
A dense cloud of hot debris stripped from the neutron stars just before the collision produces visible and infrared light (blue-white through red)
Hubble visible light
Chandra X-ay light
Swift Ultraviolet light
