{
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    "results": [
        {
            "id": 11086,
            "url": "http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11086/",
            "result_type": "Produced Video",
            "release_date": "2012-09-27T12:00:00-04:00",
            "title": "Simulations Uncover 'Flashy' Secrets of Merging Black Holes",
            "description": "According to Einstein, whenever massive objects interact, they produce gravitational waves — distortions in the very fabric of space and time — that ripple outward across the universe at the speed of light. While astronomers have found indirect evidence of these disturbances, the waves have so far eluded direct detection. Ground-based observatories designed to find them are on the verge of achieving greater sensitivities, and many scientists think that this discovery is just a few years away. Catching gravitational waves from some of the strongest sources — colliding black holes with millions of times the sun's mass — will take a little longer. These waves undulate so slowly that they won't be detectable by ground-based facilities. Instead, scientists will need much larger space-based instruments, such as the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, which was endorsed as a high-priority future project by the astronomical community. A team that includes astrophysicists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is looking forward to that day by using computational models to explore the mergers of supersized black holes. Their most recent work investigates what kind of \"flash\" might be seen by telescopes when astronomers ultimately find gravitational signals from such an event. To explore the problem, a team led by Bruno Giacomazzo at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and including Baker developed computer simulations that for the first time show what happens in the magnetized gas (also called a plasma) in the last stages of a black hole merger. In the turbulent environment near the merging black holes, the magnetic field intensifies as it becomes twisted and compressed. The team suggests that running the simulation for additional orbits would result in even greater amplification.  The most interesting outcome of the magnetic simulation is the development of a funnel-like structure — a cleared-out zone that extends up out of the accretion disk near the merged black hole. The most important aspect of the study is the brightness of the merger's flash. The team finds that the magnetic model produces beamed emission that is some 10,000 times brighter than those seen in previous studies, which took the simplifying step of ignoring plasma effects in the merging disks. || ",
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        },
        {
            "id": 10947,
            "url": "http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10947/",
            "result_type": "Produced Video",
            "release_date": "2012-04-03T00:00:00-04:00",
            "title": "Crash And Burst",
            "description": "Imagine a dead star the size of a city and with more mass than our sun. Now imagine two of these ultra-heavy spheres smashing into each other, generating a blast bright enough to outshine an entire galaxy. Scientists have recreated just that using supercomputers to model what happens during the collision of two neutron stars. The entire process unfolds in just 35 thousandths of a second, but what this new analysis reveals is how the tangled magnetic field lines of the collapsed neutron stars restructure around a black hole, focusing a narrow stream of particles that jet into space at 99.995 percent the speed of light. Scientists believe events like this are one source of gamma-ray bursts, the powerful flashes of light from beyond the Milky Way that were first detected by satellites in the late 1960s. Watch the visualization below to see this lightning-fast cosmic wreck evolve in super-slow motion. || ",
            "hits": 126
        },
        {
            "id": 10740,
            "url": "http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10740/",
            "result_type": "Produced Video",
            "release_date": "2011-04-07T09:00:00-04:00",
            "title": "When Neutron Stars Collide",
            "description": "Armed with state-of-the-art supercomputer models, scientists have shown that colliding neutron stars can produce the energetic jet required for a gamma-ray burst. Earlier simulations demonstrated that mergers could make black holes. Others had shown that the high-speed particle jets needed to make a gamma-ray burst would continue if placed in the swirling wreckage of a recent merger. Now, the simulations reveal the middle step of the process—how the merging stars' magnetic field organizes itself into outwardly directed components capable of forming a jet. The Damiana supercomputer at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics needed six weeks to reveal the details of a process that unfolds in just 35 thousandths of a second—less than the blink of an eye.For the researchers' website, with more video and stills of their simulations, go here. || ",
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        }
    ]
}