Astronomers from around the world have combined radio telescopes on five continents, including Jodrell Bank, to prove the existence of a narrow stream of material, known as a jet, emerging from aftermath of a violent merger of neutron stars.

In August 2017, two neutron stars were observed colliding, producing gravitational waves that were detected by the American LIGO and European VIRGO detectors. This event is the first and only one of this type that has been observed so far, and it happened in a galaxy 130 million light years away from Earth.

Neutron stars are ultra-dense stars, roughly the same mass as the Sun, but similar in size to a city like Manchester.

Astronomers observed the event and the subsequent evolution across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma-rays, X-rays to visible light and radio waves. Two hundred days after the merger, observations combining radio telescopes in Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North America proved the existence of a jet emerging from this violent collision.

These findings have been published in the scientific journal Science by an international team of astronomers, led by Giancarlo Ghirlanda from the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF, Italy).

This neutron star merger represents the first case where it was possible to associate a detection of gravitational waves to an object emitting light. The event has confirmed scientific theories that have been under discussion for tens of years, and the association of neutron star mergers with one of the most powerful explosions in the Universe: gamma-ray bursts.

Dr Robert Beswick, co-author from the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, said: “This is a really exciting discovery. The team has determined that this event produced a powerful jet able to pierce through the material ejected from the neutron stars as they merged.