Two black holes are heading for an epic collision. There are two black holes, one of which is the enormous type of black hole which is found at the center of most galaxies, and the other is a smaller companion that is spiraling closer in. Studying the two will give clues about how black holes come to be.
Researchers don't know exactly how black holes, which are millions or billions of times the mass of the sun, are created. It's very rare to see a pair of smaller black holes merging, so this new discovery could shine a light on this process.
The pair were spotted by an astronomer from Caltech. The team used radio telescopes on Earth to see jets that are ejected from black holes when hot gas hits them. If the jets are pointed toward us, we can detect them from Earth.
The team looked at the observations of the blazar for 45 years. The peaks and troughs of the light curve detected from recent times matched the peaks and troughs observed between 1975 and 1983.
The researchers were able to confirm that the variations were due to a second black hole tugging on the black hole's orbit, as the two circle each other approximately every two years.
It took 45 years of radio observations to produce this work. Small teams at different observatories across the country took data week in and week out to make this possible.
The research was published in a journal.
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