The Chandra X-ray Observatory helped discover two merging black holes a mere 3,000 light years apart
Posted 10.07.2009 at 1:15 pm
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Black Hole Merger: Two pinpoints of light represent black holes in the center of this combined X-ray/optical image NASA/CXC/MIT/C.Canizares, M.Nowak/STScI
Chandra findings first led astrophysicists to pinpoint the two black holes in 2002. The black holes sit just 3,000 light years apart from one another in the NGC 6240 system, after a 30-million year cosmic dance that has brought them spiraling in closer to one another. They should ultimately merge into a super-massive black hole some tens or hundreds of millions of years from now.
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Science, Jeremy Hsu, black holes, chandra, colliding, collision, galaxy, hubble, nasa, SpaceScientists believe that pairs of massive black holes can help explain the quirky behavior of super-massive black holes, which may form during common galaxy mergers and collisions. Many galaxies such as our own Milky Way contain a supermassive black hole in the center.
Such interest in gigantic mergers might explain why researchers have simulated black hole threesomes in the past. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
[NASA]
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Best. Title. Ever.
More that we do not understand about black holes.
Does this make you more comfortable with CERN?
He said "threesome"...
Heh, heh, heh.
If black holes take in light then how could scientists see this happen?
from coral gables, fl
Black holes can't be seen but what is visible is their effect on the universe around them. Although we can't see light passed through or reflected off the black hole, the massive amounts of gravity have a visible effect on other objects out in space.
And yes more information that we do not understand about black holes makes me more comfortable with CERN -- it's research may help us understand more about this phenomenon and the structure of our own galaxy.
from Winnipeg, Manitoba
The photo was taken in X-Ray with an overlay of basic optical imagery. All that light is far to radiated to see normally. I think the larger black hole will consume the smaller one, right down to the math of the mass.
This may result in a quasar expelling Gamma radiation.
Beautiful photo.
www.darkfx.cjb.net
Although we can't see light passed through or reflected off the black hole, the massive amounts of gravity have a visible effect on other objects out in space.
www.cirurgia-plastica.com