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Jillian Rastinejad

Rastinejad, Jillian

Graduate Student

  1800 Sherman, 8027

Department:

Jillian Rastinejad is mainly interested in researching astronomical transients and kilonovae using optical and near-infrared observations. Kilonovae are produced by compact mergers involving a neutron star and have exciting implications for multimessenger astronomy. She looks for and studies kilonovae using observations following short gamma-ray bursts and as a member of the gravitational-wave follow-up collaboration, SAGUARO. Jillian is passionate about outreach and has been a CIERA high school mentor.

PublicationsTWITTER/X

Advisor: Wen-fai Fong

 

 

Related Programs

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Gallery Contributions

Unprecedented gamma-ray burst explained by long-lived jet

Video

Unprecedented gamma-ray burst explained by long-lived jet

Last year, Northwestern University researchers uncovered new observational evidence that long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can result from the merger of a neutron star with another compact object (either another neutron star or black hole) — a finding that was previously believed to be impossible. Now, another Northwestern team offers a potential explanation for what generated

Ore Gottlieb/Danat Issa/Alexander Tchekhovskoy/CIERA/Northwestern

  • Science

Star Collapses into NEW Black Hole

Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do2oFQjAS8o&ab_channel=NationalScienceFoundation

Star Collapses into NEW Black Hole

Affectionately referred to as the B.O.A.T. (“brightest of all time”), the powerful explosion occurred approximately 2.4 billion light-years away from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Sagitta. Astrophysicists, including Jillian Rastinejad, first detected the GRB, which was a few hundred seconds in duration, in gamma-ray light on Oct. 9. Read the full Northwestern News

National Science Foundation

Gemini North image (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

Image

Gemini North image (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

This Gemini North image, superimposed on an image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the telltale near-infrared afterglow of a kilonova produced by a long GRB (GRB 211211A). This discovery challenges the prevailing theory that long GRBs exclusively come from supernovae, the end-of-life explosions of massive stars. Read the full Northwestern News story: December

International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani; NASA/ESA

artist’s impression of a kilonova produced by two colliding neutron stars (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

Image

artist’s impression of a kilonova produced by two colliding neutron stars (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

This artist’s impression shows a kilonova produced by two colliding neutron stars. While studying the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst (GRB), two independent teams of astronomers using a host of telescopes in space and on Earth, including the Gemini North telescope on Hawai‘i and the Gemini South telescope in Chile, have uncovered the unexpected

NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine

A broader view of GRB 211211A’s location (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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A broader view of GRB 211211A’s location (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

A broader view of GRB 211211A’s location, circled in red, captured using three filters on Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Read the full Northwestern News story: December 7, 2022

NASA, ESA, Rastinejad et al. (2022), Troja et al. (2022), and Gladys Kober (Catholic Univ. of America)

Gamma-ray burst 211211A (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

Image

Gamma-ray burst 211211A (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

Gamma-ray burst 211211A, the location of which is circled in red, erupted on the outskirts of a spiral galaxy around 1 billion light-years away in the constellation Boötes. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured the image with its Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. Read the full Northwestern News story: December 7,

NASA, ESA, Rastinejad et al. (2022), and Gladys Kober (Catholic Univ. of America)

Illustration: two neutron stars begin to merge (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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Illustration: two neutron stars begin to merge (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

Two neutron stars begin to merge in this illustration, blasting a jet of high-speed particles and producing a cloud of debris. Scientists think these kinds of events are factories for a significant portion of the universe’s heavy elements, including gold. Read the full Northwestern News story: December 7, 2022

A. Simonnet (Sonoma State University) and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Artist’s impression of GRB 211211A (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

Image

Artist’s impression of GRB 211211A (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

The kilonova and gamma-ray burst is on the right. The blue color represents material squeezed along the poles, while the red colors indicate material ejected by the two inspiralling neutron stars that is now swirling around the merged object. A disk of ejecta emitted after the merger, hidden behind the red and blue ejecta, is shown in

Aaron M. Geller/Northwestern/CIERA and IT Research Computing Services

A view of GRB221009A from Gemini South in Chile.

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A view of GRB221009A from Gemini South in Chile.

“This GRB is an extraordinarily rare event,” said Rastinejad, a Northwestern Ph.D. student. “It was so bright that it triggered the Swift gamma-ray telescopes twice and fully saturated the detectors — something I haven’t seen in my time observing GRBs.” “As long as we have been able to detect GRBs, there is no question that

International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. O'Connor (UMD/GWU) & J. Rastinejad & W. Fong (Northwestern University)