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What a nearby kilonova would look like

Physicists imagined what we’d see if two neutron stars merged 1,000 light-years from Earth

kilonova over NYC

NEARBY NOVA  A kilonova — the bright burst following a crash between two neutron stars — would shine brighter than the stars over the New York City skyline, even during the day. This simulated image shows the kilonova after one day (left) and after seven days (right).

N. Gupte, I. Bartos/arXiv.org 2019, King of Hearts/Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA-3.0)

By Lisa Grossman

- More than 2 years ago

If two dense neutron stars collided relatively close to Earth, the resulting kilonova would shine day and night with the brightness of the moon squeezed into a small dot.