NCSA NEWS

Somewhere in the universe's billions of galaxies two neutron stars are locked in an ever-accelerating inspiral. This inspiral, begun millions of years before, will reach nearly the speed of light just before the stars collide, producing a crash so violent that the gravitational waves from this cosmic splash will be seen millions of light years away.

"It's an amazing phenomenon," says Doug Swesty, a research scientist at NCSA. "You take these things with incredible densities -- they are one-and-a-half times as massive as the Sun, but packed down to a radius of 10 kilometers -- then have them going around each other at 60,000 RPMs. When they collide, it is violent beyond belief."

In the 80 years since Einstein predicted neutron star collisions through the tenets of his theory of general relativity, scientists have accumulated impressive indirect evidence that supports the occurrence. Nevertheless, a multitude of questions remain about these massive entities -- from what factors initiate the inspiral to their ultimate fate. Do they meld into a larger neutron star or does matter coalesce further, yielding a black hole? Does their merger produce mysterious gamma ray bursts, and is it the source of scarce heavy elements in the universe?