• Question: what have you discovered so far?

    Asked by anon-183230 to Ry on 18 Sep 2018.
    • Photo: Ry Cutter

      Ry Cutter answered on 18 Sep 2018:


      Hi creativephysicist2491,

      My main work is looking for the explosion that comes when two neutron stars collide. We call the explosion a Kilonova. Last year we found the very first kilonova that has gravitational wave component as well! It wasn’t just my discovery, there are thousands of scientists all working really hard on this subject.

      I have also been working on a piece of software that plays spot the difference with the stars. It uses pictures from the night before to see if there are any new things in the sky. This means I’m finding all kinds of stuff every night! Usually, they are what we call novas, but sometimes more interesting things can be found. Like a star ripping another star apart with gravity. We call those Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs).

      Great Question,

      Ryan

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