James Webb’s view of the post-burst field of view (IMAGE)

University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Science

James Webb’s view of the post-burst field of view

Caption

The red dot in the top left is the gamma-ray burst’s infrared counterpart. According to the astronomers, what happened is that first two “normal” stars orbited each other inside the large spiral galaxy on the right. At some point in the past, they exploded as supernovae leaving behind two compact neutron stars which were violently kicked out of the galaxy. After having traveled more than 100,000 lightyears, the neutron stars finally merged, exploding once again as a kilonova. Credit: Levan et al. (2023), Peter Laursen (DAWN).

Credit

Credit: Levan et al. (2023), Peter Laursen (DAWN).

Usage Restrictions

According to credits

License

Licensed content

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.