Looking up - 26 April 2019

Published: April 26, 2019, 3:22 p.m.

The hunt is on - astronomy as it happens! Kechil dropped in on astronomer Dr Stephen Potter at the observatory in Observatory, whilst he happened to be receiving alerts about a new gravitational wave event. Astronomers receive alerts from telescopes around the world when something happens. In this case a gravitational wave was detected, and so telescopes around the world, including in up in Sutherland, slew round to see if they can detect an optical component. He will now join his colleagues in setting up observations during the night in Sutherland to hunt down any huge cataclysmic event which happened recently and which could have caused the gravitational wave.