WASHINGTON: Experts have observed two pairs of black holes poised to collide for the first time in a rare cosmic event.
With technological advancements, astronomers can now explore outer space in unprecedented detail, witnessing phenomena such as a massive black hole “starving” its host galaxy and answering long-standing questions.
In another remarkable discovery, scientists have identified two pairs of supermassive black holes on the verge of merging, marking the first observation of large black holes within merging dwarf galaxies. This event occurred in two dwarf galaxies located 760 million and 3.2 billion light-years away from our own.
Captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, this discovery unveiled a previously unseen phenomenon: each galaxy harbors two supermassive black holes at its core. Astronomers detected X-ray radiation from the accretion disks surrounding these black holes—the rings of superheated plasma formed as they consume matter.
Thanks to the specialized equipment of the Chandra Observatory, this phenomenon was recorded, offering potential insights into how large galaxies like our Milky Way are formed. Experts theorize that dwarf galaxies serve as the building blocks of mature galaxies, gradually evolving over billions of years through repeated mergers.
Brenna Wells, a co-author of the study, noted, “Most dwarf galaxies and black holes in the early universe have likely grown much larger now due to repeated mergers. In a sense, dwarf galaxies are our galactic ancestors, evolving over billions of years to create large galaxies like our own Milky Way.”