A scientist at the University of Sydney used an advanced CSIRO telescope to confirm radio signals were emitted from the collision of two neutron stars, providing crucial evidence for a global scientific announcement in the field of gravitational waves.
An international team of scientists and astronomers announced they discovered ripples in time and space, known as gravitational waves, on August 17.
The waves were caused by two neutron stars colliding in a galaxy 130 million light-years from Earth, according to the researchers.
Following the initial discovery, international teams scrambled to find light, X-ray and radio signals from the same event.
Visual confirmation came 11 hours after the event and was detected by a number of groups around the world. X-ray emissions were found nine days later.
Then the Australian team at the University of Sydney, led by Associate Professor Tara Murphy, confirmed the first radio signals after 15 days.
Ms Murphy said she was in the United States with her colleague David Kaplan when they saw the gravitational wave discovery announced on a private email list.
“We immediately rang our team in Australia and told them to get onto the CSIRO telescope as soon as possible, then started planning our observations,” she said.
“We were lucky in a sense in that it was perfect timing but you have to be at the top of your game to play in this space. It is intense, time-critical science.”
The combined results were published on Tuesday in the journal Science, in a paper co-authored by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Oxford University.
Scientists around the world are continuing their research into the event. Sydney University said the discovery would usher in a “second epoch in gravitational waves discovery”.
Gravitational waves were discovered in 2015, confirming a prediction developed by Albert Einstein in 1916. The discovery was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics this year.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Waves (OzGrav) director Professor Matthew Bailes said the discovery of a clearly located wave event was significant.
“Never before have we seen where in the Universe gravitational waves came from; the subsequent avalanche of science was virtually unparalleled in modern astrophysics,” Mr Bailes said.
The discovery is also the first recorded instance of two neutron stars colliding. Neutron stars are the densest stars in the Universe, with a radius of about 10 kilometres, according to information from the Australian National University.
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