LIGO, High Gear Science Run Options

[The Messenger]

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=19142

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- The quest to detect and study gravitational waves with the NSF-funded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is now in the fourth month of its first sustained science run since achieving its promised design sensitivity, project personnel announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). ...

Now that the LIGO is sensitive enough to detect changes in distance a mere thousandth the diameter of a proton, Marx adds, the science return should be even greater. Recent results from the Swift satellite pinpointing the location of short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have also heightened astronomers' interest in the results from LIGO's current observational run.

That level of sensitivity is, in my opinion, the most incredible technical achievement since the VLA.

The very long gamma ray associated with supernova/hypernova 1996aj should also be of great interest.

[Explorer1]

Incredible find!
I was under the impression that supernovas also create the elements heavier than iron. Is that origin theory still possible, or is it a mix of both?

[TheAnt]

Incredible find!
I was under the impression that supernovas also create the elements heavier than iron. Is that origin theory still possible, or is it a mix of both?

A supernova should indeed produce some heavy elements if the theory is correct for them.

If I have understood this right, and I'm no physicist, the amounts of elements heavier than iron don't quite add up if only supernova explosions were the source.
For example the amount of the most heavy elements would be very small. Lets say the mass of Luna, our moon from one supernova.
When two neutron stars collide, they spew out 100 if not 1000's of times more material.
The part from the surface of the neutron star would be iron and elements from that medium heavy part of the periodic table, the other material will be neutronium.
Soon ½ of the neutrons decay to protons capture electrons and create gold, uranium and the very heavy, and briefly existing, elements on row 7 of the periodic table.