Researchers at LIU-Brooklyn are at the center of a major scientific breakthrough in space.

Scientists recently discovered a phenomenon called the neutron star merger, thanks in part to LIU's radio telescope in New Mexico that helped observe the event for the first time.

A neutron star is the remnants of a star after it dies out, and in this case two of them were in the same galaxy orbiting each other, emitting gravitational waves that eventually cause a head-on collision.

The collision sends light far enough for people on Earth to detect, millions of light years away.

"It allows us to get a complete picture of the system and the system is really very extreme. It's a system where the laws of physics are really pushed to their limits so there's a great deal for us to learn by looking at it in all these many different kinds of ways, through all these many different kinds of instruments," says astrophysicist Michael Kavic.

The discovery of such an event reportedly helps scientists move closer to solving the great mystery of how and where everything in the universe came from.