Cosmoview Episode 61: First Kilonova Progenitor System Identified

Astronomers using data from the SMARTS 1.5-meter Telescope at  the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF's NOIRLab, have made the first confirmed detection of a star system that will one day form a kilonova — the ultra-powerful, gold-producing explosion created by merging neutron stars. These systems are so phenomenally rare that only about 10 such systems are thought to exist in the entire Milky Way.