Zoom on NGC 4993

This movie zooms from a ground-based view on towards the lenticular galaxy NGC 4993 in the constellation Hydra. Within this galaxy, a neutron star collision generated gravitational waves and an associated gamma-ray burst. It also resulted in an explosion called a kilonova that was visible to telescopes including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The zoom ends with a loop of the three Hubble observations made in the first days after the explosion, clearly showing the evolution of the colour and brightness of the kilonovoa.

Credit:
NASA, ESA, and J. DePasquale, and G. Bacon (STScI); Acknowledgment: A. Mellinger; Digitized Sky Survey (DSS), STScI/AURA

[LandoHitman]

This is actually really cool, to see what caused the gravitational waves and just how mind-bogglingly far away the neutron stars that created it, were.