Gravitational wave radiation is undulations in the space time continuum, sothat. It's not photons that we use for electromagnetic radiation. And these rotating neutron stars give off a loss of this gravitational wave radiation. As the neutron stars orbit each other, the orbit loses energy because the gravitational wave radiation has taken energy away from the system. The neutron stars get closer and closer and closer together, and eventually they merge with each other. Now that can form a more massive neutron star, that could form a black hole. We think these combining neutron stars are the main sites where heavy elements like strantium or plutonium, perhaps even gold or silver, these kinds of elements, are made in
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby planets, only to collapse into dense white dwarves. The massive stars, up to fifty times the mass of the Sun, burst into supernovas, visible from Earth in daytime, and become incredibly dense neutron stars or black holes. In these moments of collapse, the intense heat and pressure can create all the known elements to form gases and dust which may eventually combine to form new stars, new planets and, as on Earth, new life.
The image above is of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, approximately 10,000 light years away, from a once massive star that died in a supernova explosion that was first seen from Earth in 1690
With
Martin Rees
Astronomer Royal, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
Carolin Crawford
Emeritus Member of the Institute of Astronomy and Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge
And
Mark Sullivan
Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southampton
Producer: Simon Tillotson