Artist’s Illustration of Multi-Messenger Event

This illustration depicts a compact merger event that is emitting three multi-messenger signals: photons, neutrinos and gravitational waves. Cosmic rays, made up of high-energy particles, come from other distant sources throughout space and are deflected and neutralized by Earth's atmosphere and magnetic fields. Multi-messenger astronomy aims to combine the information from more than one of these signals to give researchers a deeper understanding of some of the most extreme events in the Universe. NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory will soon contribute to this emerging field by using its powerful camera and wide field of view to find faint multi-messenger sources and point other telescopes in the right direction for follow-up observations. 

Alt text: Conceptual illustration of a multi-messenger astrophysical event. In the top left, two neutron stars are colliding in a bright blue burst of energy. The collision emits several different types of signals, which are being detected by different telescopes and facilities illustrated on Earth in the lower right. Gravitational waves are represented by bright and dark bands spiraling outward from the colliding neutron stars. Subatomic particles called neutrinos radiate from the collision as dashed lines, and light radiates as squiggly lines. A meandering, looping solid line that comes from somewhere else beyond the collision represents a cosmic ray, which expands into a fan-shaped spray at the Earth’s atmosphere.