• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Couple Of Supermassive Black Holes Caught Sharing A Meal For The First Time

November 15, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Galaxy 2MASX J21240027+340911 has been known to have an active nucleus for a decade or so. At its core, a supermassive black hole was feeding on some interstellar material, gas or dust, that got too close. Recently, astronomers have discovered a repeating signal from this object, suggesting more complexity: It is not one but two supermassive black holes in the core of this galaxy – and they are sharing a meal.

The supermassive black holes have a combined mass 40 million times that of the Sun and they are about one light-day away from each other, roughly 26 billion kilometers (16 billion miles). They are destined to collide in about 70,000 years, and they orbit each other ever more closely every 130 days. It is this orbital motion that gave rise to the repeating event observed.

Advertisement

“It’s a very weird event, called AT 2021hdr, that keeps recurring every few months,” lead author Lorena Hernández-García, an astrophysicist at the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics and University of Valparaíso in Chile, said in a statement. “We think that a gas cloud engulfed the black holes. As they orbit each other, the black holes interact with the cloud, perturbing and consuming its gas. This produces an oscillating pattern in the light from the system.” 

two black holes illustrated as sphere orbited by a cloud of gas swirling all over the place

Artist’s impression of the pair of monster black holes swirling in a cloud of gas

NASA/Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State University)

The outburst was first seen by the Caltech-led ZTF (Zwicky Transient Facility) at the Palomar Observatory. The facility continued to spot the event every 60 to 90 days, and it was then followed up by NASA’s Swift telescope.

“Although this flare was originally thought to be a supernova, outbursts in 2022 made us think of other explanations,” added co-author Alejandra Muñoz-Arancibia, also at the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics and the Center for Mathematical Modeling at the University of Chile. “Each subsequent event has helped us refine our model of what’s going on in the system.”

The team considered multiple possibilities. It could have been a common behavior in an active nucleus. Alternatively, it might have been a star getting too close to the supermassive black hole, getting ripped apart, and being slowly consumed. But a pair of supermassive black holes shrouded in a gas cloud, having a feast while orbiting each other, is the most compelling.

Advertisement

The team plans to continue monitoring this event to better model what is going on, as well as studying the host galaxy which is undergoing a merger. The galaxy is 1 billion light-years from Earth.

The paper is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. No ‘magic wand’ to fix Lebanon crisis, new prime minister says
  2. “I am not weak”: Qatari women unsuccessful in first legislative elections
  3. Feeling Crappy After Your COVID-19 Vaccination May Indicate A Better Immune Response
  4. Starseeds: Psychologists On Why Some People Think They’re Aliens Living On Earth

Source Link: Couple Of Supermassive Black Holes Caught Sharing A Meal For The First Time

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Video: Is There An Ideal Sleeping Position?
  • If You Look Up At The Right Time Today, You Will See A Giant “X” On The Moon
  • We May Have Our Third Interstellar Visitor And It’s Nothing Like The Previous Two
  • Orcas Filmed Kissing (With Tongues) In The Wild For The First Time
  • How Easy Is It For A Country To Change Its Time Zone?
  • Earth’s First Commercial Space Station Set To Launch In 2026
  • Black Hole Moon: Rogue Planets With Weird Signatures Could Be A Sign Of Advanced Alien Life
  • World’s Largest Ephemeral Lake Set To Turn Iconic Peachy Pink After Extreme Flooding
  • Stunning New JWST Observations Give Further Evidence That Dark Matter Is A Real Substance
  • How Big Is This Spider? Study Explains Why You Might Overestimate Their Size
  • Orcas Sometimes Give Humans Presents Of Food And We Don’t Know Why
  • New Approach For Interstellar Navigation Was Tested On A Spacecraft 9 Billion Kilometers Away
  • For Only The Second Recorded Time, Two Novae Are Visible With The Naked Eye At Once
  • Long-Lost Ancient Egyptian City Ruled By Cobra Goddess Discovered In Nile Delta
  • Much Maligned Norwegian Lemming Is One Of The Newest Mammal Species On Earth
  • Where Are The Real Geographical Centers Of All The Continents?
  • New Species Of South African Rain Frog Discovered, And It’s Absolutely Fuming About It
  • Love Cheese But Hate Nightmares? Bad News, It Looks Like The Two Really Are Related
  • Project Hail Mary Trailer First Look: What Would Happen If The Sun Got Darker?
  • Newly Discovered Cell Structure Might Hold Key To Understanding Devastating Genetic Disorders
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version