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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Astronomers see first light flare from two distant black holes colliding [theverge.com]

A whopping 7.5 billion light-years from Earth, two black holes, each about the size of Long Island, rapidly spun around each other several times per second before smashing together in a cataclysmic explosion that sent shockwaves through the Universe. Normally, violent unions like this are dark events, but astronomers think they saw a flare of light emerge from this celestial dance — potentially the first time light has ever been seen from black holes merging.

It's a unique discovery since black holes are notorious for not producing any light at all. These super dense objects are so massive that nothing can escape their gravitational pull — not even light. So how exactly did researchers see a flare from two black holes that aren't supposed to flare?

Well, the black holes may have just been in the right place at the right time, according to a new study published in the journal Physical Review Letters [aps.org] [DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.251102] [DX [doi.org]]. When they spun together, they were located inside a giant disc of gas and dust. This disc of material spans light-years and actually surrounds a third black hole — a supermassive one at the center of a galaxy. Since the dueling black holes were inside this dusty environment, their spinning and eventual merger created something like a shock wave that slammed into the surrounding dirt and gas. That heated up the nearby material, causing it to glow brighter than normal — and allowing researchers from Earth to spot it.

There are a lot of stars [wikipedia.org] (and stellar black holes) hanging around near supermassive black holes in the centers of some galaxies [wikipedia.org].

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