text: Scientists witness huge cosmic crash, "most spectacular fireworks in the universe" - 6abc Philadelphia
  Scientists witness huge cosmic crash, "most spectacular fireworks in the universe"
  Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope imaged the kilonova produced by merging neutron stars in the galaxy NGC 4993 (box) on Aug. 18, 2017. (NASA/Swift)
  WASHINGTON -- It was a faint signal, but it told of one of the most violent acts in the universe, and it would soon reveal secrets of the cosmos, including how gold was created.
  What they witnessed in mid-August and revealed Monday was the long-ago collision of two neutron stars - a phenomenon California Institute of Technology's David H. Reitze called "the most spectacular fireworks in the universe."
  10.87 hours after @LIGO detection of #NeutronStar merger #GW170817, #SwopeTeam was FIRST to see the light from #SSS17a pic.twitter.com/LBCqNzn6yi
  — Carnegie Science (@carnegiescience) October 16, 2017
  NASA's Fermi telescope, which detects gamma rays, sent out the first alarm. Then, 1.7 seconds later, gravity wave detectors in Louisiana and Washington state that are a part of the LIGO Laboratory, whose founders won a Nobel Prize earlier this month, detected the crash. It issued a worldwide alert to focus telescopes on what became the most well-observed astronomical event in history.
  Calculations from a telescope measuring ultraviolet light showed that the combined mass of the heavy elements from this explosion is 1,300 times the mass of Earth. And all that stuff - including lighter elements - was thrown out in all different directions and is now speeding across the universe.
  Perhaps one day the material will clump together into planets the way ours was formed, Reitze said - maybe ones with rich veins of precious metals.
  The crash also helped explain the origins of one of the most dangerous forces of the cosmos - short gamma ray bursts, focused beams of radiation that could erase life on any planet that happened to get in the way. These bursts shoot out in two different directions perpendicular to where the two neutron stars first crash, Reitze said.