SSS17a (IMAGE)

University of California - Santa Cruz

SSS17a

Caption

The first optical image of a gravitational wave source was taken by a team led by Ryan Foley of UC Santa Cruz using the Swope Telescope at the Carnegie Institution's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. This image of Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a, indicated by arrow) shows the light emitted from the cataclysmic merger of two neutron stars.

Credit

Image credit: 1M2H Team/UC Santa Cruz & Carnegie Observatories/Ryan Foley

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