The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
The elliptical galaxy NGC 4993, about 130 million light-years from Earth, viewed with the VIMOS instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile.
After the almost simultaneous detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration and of a gamma-ray burst by ESA's Integral and NASA’s Fermi satellites, a large number of ground and space telescopes started searching for the source in the sky.
About half a day later, scientists at various optical observatories spotted something new near the core of this galaxy: it was the visible light counterpart to the gravitational waves and the gamma-ray burst, confirming that they originated from the collision of two neutron stars.
The result of such a cosmic clash is a kilonova: the neutron-rich material released in the merger is impacting its surroundings, forging a wealth of heavy elements in the process. The kilonova can be seen just above and slightly to the left of the centre of the galaxy.
Full story: Integral sees blast travelling with gravitational waves