The X-ray glow keeps growing after the recent neutron star collision
Puzzled scientists expected the brightness to fade quickly
More than 100 days after two neutron stars slammed together, merging into one, new telescope images have revealed that the collision’s lingering X-ray light show has gotten brighter. And scientists don’t fully understand why.
NASA’s orbiting X-ray telescope, Chandra, previously picked up the X-rays 15 days after gravitational waves from the cataclysm reached Earth on August 17, 2017 (SN: 11/11/17, p. 6). The merged remnant then spent several months too close to the sun for its X-rays to be seen.