First LIGO/Virgo detection of a binary neutron star merger (GW170817)

This is a time-frequency representation (spectrogram) of the LIGO detectors data which combines both the LIGO-Hanford and LIGO-Livingston data coherently for the binary neutron star merger GW170817. On the horizontal axis time is shown, and on the vertical axis the frequency content of the data. In color code the strength of the signal is shown as a function of time and frequency.

This is analogous to listening to the source and turning to face it. In this case your ears are the two LIGO detectors. Initally, we show the data with the gravitational-wave signal removed. We reveal the observed data in real time, accompanied by the audio presentation of the plotted data. The signal is so strong that we see that the track of GW170817 for nearly 30 seconds. An audible chirp can also be heard at 0:29 just before the merger time.

© Alex Nitz/Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics/LIGO

[soroosha]

this boring video is one of the coolest things ive ever seen

[KhalOisha]

It's amazing how a huge event like this produce a cartoon sfx 😆

[wasilkatchi]

the discovery that gravitational waves not only emerge from black holes but also from neutron stars is far far fascinating. this us an extremely wide view for the study of these waves. definitely a great time to live in...

[sandeew.]

Simply amazing, I can't stop smiling!

[aSpyIntheHaus]

Oh, yeah wow. I can hear it now. I watched it 5 times, couldn't make it out. Then went to the other video with the whit noise removed and its very clear there. So after a couple of listens to that video I came back here and I can just make it out.

The other video is here:

[ouchiedumpling]

Can someone slow it down and process it so we can hear what's actually happening?