Ends with a Bang

as you know, the LIGO/Virgo collaboration discovered a splendid thing

at long last the source we all expected LIGO to actually detect, for sure like, was actually observed,
and a real wowser it was

not just a coalescing binary neutron star, but one right in our backyard, ridiculously bright, and with a gorgeous all band electro-magnetic counterpart

for once theorists were right, there were γ-rays, x-rays, jets, optical and infra-red glows, radio emission and, apparently, a significant chunk of high atomic number metals, including a lot
of r-process elements, ejected from outer layers of the neutron star debris as the bulk of the neutron star mass merged

it was a team effort, rather jolly, and I expect it may earn some people a trip or two to Stockholm, if The Academy is its usual sensible self, that is.

As part of the flap, Josh Bloom and I wrote a "perspective" piece on the discovery,
the link for which is appended, for your perusal

A cosmic multimessenger gold rush