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The representation of a neutron star and a black hole colliding by a artist
Credit: A. Tonita, L. Rezzolla, F. Pannarale [19659004] A celestial collision up to here invisible could be the best bet of astronomers to determine how fast the universe is developing.
Right now, physicists have two ways of measuring this rate of expansion, and both are pretty accurate. the answers do not match. This has been frustrating, since the number, known as the Hubble constant, feeds calculations like those that scientists use to estimate the age of the universe
and that is why they are looking for a third method to identify it. A pair of scientists based in Mbadachusetts think the trick will help to glimpse the violent phenomenon of a black hole and a collision between a neutron star. [Did a Neutron-Star Collision Make a Black Hole?]
"Black hole neutron star binaries are very complicated systems, of which we know very little," said Salvatore Vitale, a physicist at the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology, in a statement. . "If we detect one, the price is that they can potentially make a dramatic contribution to our understanding of the universe."
Until now, scientists have not observed collisions of a mixed pair, only binary black holes and binary neutron stars. Most of these observations included only black holes, so the collision can only be detected using gravitational waves. Astronomers know that they also need a light signal to calculate the Hubble constant, which lets them look for pairs of neutron stars or binaries with black holes, neutrons, and stars.
But physicists were trying to calculate the Hubble constant. During the August neutron-star melting – the first ever observed – they could not be very confident in the outcome. That's because neutron-star collisions are a mess, pulling material asymmetrically and making it difficult for scientists to understand how far a signal comes from.
Replace one of these neutron stars with a black hole and the mess becomes more manageable, giving physicists the location they would need to recalculate Hubble's constant. But scientists believe that these mixed collisions are more rare, so Vitale and his colleague wanted to check if the benefit of the more specific location outweighs the disability of the mergers being less common.
This work was detailed on July 12 in an article published in the US. According to their estimates, a single blended fusion should allow physicists to calculate the Hubble constant as efficiently as to combine data from 50 different neutron-star collisions [19659011]. Now all we have to do is wait for a lucky break.
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her @meghanbartels . Follow us on @Spacedotcom Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com
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