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A long-standing paradigm in astrophysics is that collisions- or mergers- oftwo neutron stars (NSs) form highly relativistic and collimated outflows (jets)powering gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) of short (< 2 s) duration. However, theobservational support for this model is only indirect. A hitherto outstandingprediction is that gravitational wave (GW) events from such mergers should beassociated with GRBs, and that a majority of these GRBs should be off-axis,that is, they should point away from the Earth. Here we report the discovery ofthe X-ray counterpart associated with the GW event GW170817. While theelectromagnetic counterpart at optical and infrared frequencies is dominated bythe radioactive glow from freshly synthesized r-process material in the mergerejecta, known as kilonova, observations at X-ray and, later, radio frequenciesexhibit the behavior of a short GRB viewed off-axis. Our detection of X-rayemission at a location coincident with the kilonova transient provides themissing observational link between short GRBs and GWs from NS mergers, andgives independent confirmation of the collimated nature of the GRB emission.

The X-ray counterpart to the gravitational wave event GW 170817