Astronomers Detect Energy Jet Seemingly Moving at 7 Times the Speed of Light

Astronomers Discover High-Speed Jet That Appears to Break Light Speed, But It’s Just an Illusion

Scientists have detected a gigantic flare from neutron star merger, which seems to have moved at a speed of seven times the speed of light. This optical effect is called superluminal motion because it creates the impression of particles which travel at velocities that are faster than the speed of light. This show was organized from a neutron star collision observed in 2017 that also emitted gravitational waves.

Examining data captured by Hubble and Gaia telescopes, researchers were able to assert that the event adheres to principles of common physics and focuses on the spectacular choreography of space collisions. What appears to be an energy burst, breaking the laws of physics, is actually an optical illusion. Relativistic motion or superluminal motion is the motion of particles with the velocity approaching the velocity of light.

In this case, astronomers observed a jet of energy moving at an astonishing 99 percent the speed of light. Within about a hundredth of a pace light travels 97 percent the speed of light or about 670 million mph (1. 07 billion km/h) according to a study published in the Nature journal. It was derived from a supernova blast from two neutron stars that collided in 2017, approximately 140 million light years away.

These collisions create gravitational waves– ripples in space-time, that were first postulated by Einstein in 1916 but not directly observed until 2016.

In neutron star merger dubbed GW170817, long waves were generated and observed for the first time from a source that was not a black hole, thus establishing that various cosmic phenomena can create the ripples. They cannot be seen with the naked eye but can be measured by advanced instruments such as the Large Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory instrument in California.

Following the observation of the 2017 collision by LIGO, other astronomers trained their telescopes in the same direction. After a few minutes, it noticed a rapid burst of energetic particles originating from the merging neutron stars along with a glow of the surrounding material ejected by the neutron stars.

Although the movement of the jet is actually subluminal, in the observers’ frame of reference, it appeared to be superluminal because of which the scientists used data from the Hubble space telescope, Gaia space observatory, and other radio telescopes on Earth to measure the apparent velocity of the jet.

The apparent idea of FTL is derived from the fact that their particles are moving at nearly the speed of light as are the photons emitted by the jet. This leads to the photons from a diverse part of the jet to arrive on Earth at almost the same time and thus make it look to have moved with a velocity exceeding that of light.

This optical illusion has been seen with other astrophysical jets, including one which is moving at nearly the speed of light in the Messier 87 galaxy. Like all the cases of superluminal motion, this one also can be described by mathematical values which are within the scope of physics.

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