Astronomers have identified a bumper crop of dual supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. This discovery could help astronomers better understand how giant black holes grow and how they may produce the strongest gravitational wave signals in the Universe.
The new evidence reveals five pairs of supermassive black holes, each containing millions of times the mass of the Sun. These black hole couples formed when two galaxies collided and merged with each other, forcing their supermassive black holes close together.
The black hole pairs were uncovered by combining data from a suite of different observatories including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Wide-Field Infrared Sky Explorer Survey (WISE), and the ground-based Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona.
"Astronomers find single supermassive black holes all over the universe," said Shobita Satyapal, from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, who led one of two papers describing these results. "But even though we've predicted they grow rapidly when they are interacting, growing dual supermassive black holes have been difficult to find."
Seeing double: Scientists find elusive giant black hole pairs
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(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday October 05 2017, @04:29PM (2 children)
> it's hard to imagine it makes a few waves which quickly fade away
"a few waves" which can be detected 1.4 (+/- 0.6) Billions light-years away/later in some random other system. by a detector that is 4km long, representing what infinitesimal fraction of a degree?
Surfing that small wave from less than a few hundred light-years away would warp you to mush (or whatever your heart and blood do when the time and space on your feet doesn't match with your chest).
> from the better-pairs-than-trios dept.
I'm sorry, I'm in a mood to get offended. Can we specify the gender of the black holes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @06:56PM (1 child)
> Surfing that small wave from less than a few hundred light-years away would warp you to mush (or whatever your heart and blood do when the time and space on your feet doesn't match with your chest).
Really? I doubt it. Care to explain the mechanism?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @11:03PM