Astronomy Has Just Gained a New Sense

There are many stories to tell about GW170817.

There are stories of a binary neutron star inspiral, two dead stars locked in a deadly dance that culminated in a collision. There are accounts of a worldwide collaboration of scientists, all working to discover what happened 130 million light-years away in NGC 4993. There are even tales of treasure—of gold and uranium, whose true origin may be the cosmic anvil of neutron star mergers.

Many of these have been covered by excellent reporting of yesterday’s news.

In some ways, the biggest story is that there are so many stories to tell. And the reason that there are so many is because