VIMOS image of galaxy NGC 4993 showing the visible-light counterpart to a merging neutron star pair
eso_eso1733b October 16th, 2017
Credit: ESO/A.J. Levan, N.R. Tanvir
This image from the VIMOS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile shows the galaxy NGC 4993, about 130 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy is not itself unusual, but it contains something never before witnessed, the aftermath of the explosion of a pair of merging neutron stars, a rare event called a kilonova (seen just above and slightly to the left of the centre of the galaxy). This merger also produced gravitational waves and gamma rays, both of which were detected by LIGO-Virgo and Fermi/INTEGRAL respectively.
Provider: European Southern Observatory
Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1733b/
Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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Full Size Image
(2211 x 1665)
JPG (1.06 MB) Source TIFF (8.33 MB)
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Image Details
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- eso1733b
- Subject Category
- C.5.1.4
- Subject Name
- NGC 4993
- Credits
- ESO/A.J. Levan, N.R. Tanvir
- Release Date
- 2017-10-16T16:00:00
- Lightyears
- Redshift
- Reference Url
- https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1733b/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope
- Instrument
- VIMOS, VIMOS, VIMOS
- Color Assignment
- Red, Green, Blue
- Band
- Optical, Optical, Optical
- Bandpass
- Z, R, U
- Central Wavelength
- 935.5, 646.3, 370.9
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 197.448470434, -23.3839098088
- Reference Dimension
- 2211.0, 1665.0
- Reference Pixel
- 1105.5, 832.5
- Scale
- -5.73279668348e-05, 5.73279668348e-05
- Rotation
- -0.12000000000000001
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- Creator (Curator)
- European Southern Observatory
- URL
- http://www.eso.org
- Name
- Telephone
- Address
- Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
- City
- Garching bei München
- State/Province
- Postal Code
- D-85748
- Country
- Germany
- Rights
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Publisher
- European Southern Observatory
- Publisher ID
- eso
- Resource ID
- eso1733b
- Resource URL
- https://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/original/eso1733b.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2017-10-04T17:10:49+02:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.1
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
