A close-up view of the two bright galactic nuclei, each housing a supermassive black hole, in the constellation Aquarius, 89 million light-years away from Earth. The image is from the ESO/Voggel et al.
A pair of black holes have been found in a nearby galaxy.
The two black holes are dancing around each other in the center of a large elliptical galaxy, located 89 million light-years away from Earth. Scientists say they have never seen a pair like that before.
The black hole couple, which will merge into one giant black hole 250 million years from now, escaped detection for so long because it doesn't emit much X-ray radiation. The Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile and the Hubble Space Telescope were used to find it.
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The new study shows that the two black holes are less than half the size of the previous record holder.
The previous record for the closest known black hole couple is more than five times farther away than the newly discovered duo. Calculating the mass of the two black holes by measuring how their gravity affects stars in their vicinity was the first time it had been done.
The image shows close-up and wide views of the two bright stars. The black hole is at the center of each nucleus. The image was taken by the team from the ESO/VST ATLAS team. The Durham University/CASU/WFAU has been acknowledged.
The two black holes have a mass of 154 million suns. The smaller one, which is only 1,600 light-years away, is more massive than our star.
When two galaxies collide and merge, the black holes in the center of the large galaxies.
The discovery provides a glimpse into the formation of very large supermassive black holes, but also suggests that many more black holes and merging pairs might be in other nearby galaxies.
Voggel said that the finding implies that there may be many more relics of galaxy mergers out there and they may contain hidden massive black holes. It could increase the number of black holes by 30%.
The completion of the ELT in northern Chile is expected to increase the search for black holes and black hole pairs.
The HARMONI instrument on the ELT will allow us to make detections like this considerably further than currently possible.
The paper describing the discovery was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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