Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. who specializes in science, space, physics, astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, quantum mechanics and technology. Rob's articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University\n
The collision and merger of two stellar corpses called neutron stars could help scientists unravel a long-standing mystery surrounding the expansion rate of the universe.
The rate of the universe's expansion is known as the Hubble constant, and it has become a major headache for astronomers. This is because two methods of determining this rate — observations of distant stellar explosions called supernovas, which can be used as"standard candles" to gauge cosmic distances, and the cosmic microwave background , the light left over from just after the Big Bang — yield different values for cosmic expansion.
"When two ultra-compact neutron stars — which in themselves are the remnants of supernovae — orbit each other and ultimately merge, they go off in a new explosion, a so-called kilonova," lead study author Albert Sneppen, a doctoral candidate in astrophysics at the Niels Bohr Institute's Cosmic Dawn Center in Denmark, said in a statement.
The spherical nature of a kilonova and its simple temperature profile allow astronomers to calculate their luminosity very precisely. By comparing the kilonova's brightness at the point of explosion to the amount of light from the explosion that travels millions of light-years to finally wash over Earth, scientists can determine the distance of the neutron star collision. This is because the light loses energy in a set way as it travels thanks to the expansion of the universe.
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