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Neutron star merger
Type of stellar collision / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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A neutron star merger is the stellar collision of neutron stars. When two neutron stars fall into mutual orbit, they gradually spiral inward due to gravitational radiation.[1] When they finally meet, their merger leads to the formation of either a more massive neutron star, or—if the mass of the remnant exceeds the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit—a black hole. The merger can create a magnetic field that is trillions of times stronger than that of Earth in a matter of one or two milliseconds. These events are believed to create short gamma-ray bursts.[2]
![Artist's impression of neutron stars merging, producing gravitational waves and resulting in a kilonova](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Eso1733s_Artist%27s_impression_of_merging_neutron_stars.jpg/640px-Eso1733s_Artist%27s_impression_of_merging_neutron_stars.jpg)
The merger of neutron stars momentarily creates an environment of such extreme neutron flux that the r-process can occur. This reaction accounts for the nucleosynthesis of around half of the isotopes in elements heavier than iron.[3]
The mergers also produce kilonovae,[4] which are transient sources of isotropic longer wave electromagnetic radiation due to the radioactive decay of heavy r-process nuclei that are produced and ejected during the merger process.[5] Kilonovae had been discussed as a possible r-process site since the reaction was first proposed in 1999, but the mechanism became widely accepted after multi-messenger event GW170817 was observed in 2017.