Scientists have discovered two supermassive blackholes merged together.
NASA scientists, with the help of Chandra space observatory (X-rays) and Hubble Space Telescope, have unveiled the nearest existing Galaxy with two supermassive blackholes.
The known galaxy is called N3393. This galaxy is barely at 160 million lightyears from Earth. If you want to get an idea of how far that is, let me tell you:
One lightyear is: 9.60 X 10^15 Metres
now multiply that by 160 millions, and you'll get an idea.
Scientists were astonished to discover that this galaxy contained two supermassive blackholes(only 490 light years apart from each other) . In fact, for them to be able to see this, they needed to combine two different types of imaging.
First they used Hubble space telescope. But they only obtained the golden region, which is the Galaxy.
But they were really surprised to see this x-rays (blue region) coming out of somewhere, when they began using the Chandra space observatory.
Why is that? Because, when blackholes are 'eating' everything near them, they expell x-rays, which are the visible clues of blackholes.
Scientists were amazed, because such cases were thought before, but with different blackholes. That is one small blackhole merged with a bigger blackhole (well actually more massive)
But they were really surprised to see such scenario in which two blackholes are merged, but with the little detail that they are both supermassive blackholes.
Scientists are still studying this case, but they estimate, these blackholes should be approximately a million times more massive than our sun.
Stay in touch to keep up with more information about these interesting blackholes.
Thanks.
I.
The known galaxy is called N3393. This galaxy is barely at 160 million lightyears from Earth. If you want to get an idea of how far that is, let me tell you:
One lightyear is: 9.60 X 10^15 Metres
now multiply that by 160 millions, and you'll get an idea.
Scientists were astonished to discover that this galaxy contained two supermassive blackholes(only 490 light years apart from each other) . In fact, for them to be able to see this, they needed to combine two different types of imaging.
First they used Hubble space telescope. But they only obtained the golden region, which is the Galaxy.
But they were really surprised to see this x-rays (blue region) coming out of somewhere, when they began using the Chandra space observatory.
Why is that? Because, when blackholes are 'eating' everything near them, they expell x-rays, which are the visible clues of blackholes.
Scientists were amazed, because such cases were thought before, but with different blackholes. That is one small blackhole merged with a bigger blackhole (well actually more massive)
But they were really surprised to see such scenario in which two blackholes are merged, but with the little detail that they are both supermassive blackholes.
Scientists are still studying this case, but they estimate, these blackholes should be approximately a million times more massive than our sun.
Stay in touch to keep up with more information about these interesting blackholes.
Thanks.
I.
This is really interesting, I've already heard about this and it's amazing how this kind of stuff happen.
ReplyDelete