The Role of NED in Identifying EM Counterparts to GW events
The detection of gravitational waves (GWs) has opened a new window into the Universe by enabling direct studies of mergers of massive, compact objects. Some of the largest impacts on our understanding of these events will come when combining the GW data with their electromagnetic (EM) counterparts. However, due to the large area (> 100 deg^2) localization of LIGO events, identifying their correct EM counterparts is no small feat and is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. This search is and will continue to be difficult task due to the large (>100 deg^2) localization of LIGO events. To overcome this challenge several teams used a galaxy-targeted approach to successfully locate the EM counterpart to the neutron star-neutron star merger event GW20170717. In this poster I introduce a new service of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) that will provide prioritized lists of galaxies located LIGO O3 90% probability contours to facilitate searches for EM counterparts. I will give an overview of the service, as well as an analysis of the local Universe NED galaxy sub-sample and comparisons with other local galaxy lists.
