A West Virginia University astrophysicist has been named a 2020 Highly Cited Researcher by Web of Science, one of the world’s top research awards.
News
GWAC research in the news.
NANOGrav finds possible ‘first hints’ of low-frequency gravitational wave background
Holly Legleiter |
In
data gathered and analyzed over 13 years, the North American Nanohertz
Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Physics Frontiers Center (PFC) has
found an intriguing low-frequency signal that may be attributable to
gravitational waves.
Peering into a baby magnetar with Chandra eyes
Holly Legleiter |
The baby magnetar, named Swift J1818.0-1607 (or J1818 for
short), lies in our galaxy and was discovered in March of 2020 by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. In the middle of the pandemic, when the whole world
was under lockdown, the magnetar decided to make an appearance by suddenly
lighting up in X-rays and soft gamma rays. The Swift detection caught
astronomers’ attention because the source launched a series of intense,
millisecond duration high-energy bursts in our direction, announcing the
discovery of this new kid on the block. Scientists have identified only 31
magnetars, while there are over 3,000 known neutron stars.