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A new study has revealed that two supermassive black holes will merge within 10,000 years, in a collision that will cause ripples across the universe.
The study, led by a team of astronomers from the California Institute of Technology, found that two supermassive black holes, located about 9 billion light-years away in deep space, orbit every two years.
Each supermassive black hole has a mass hundreds of millions of times greater than the mass of our sun.
Moreover, the two objects are relatively close at a distance of 1950 astronomical units (about 50 times more than the distance between our sun and Pluto)
The two bodies will collide in 10,000 years, in a collision so intense that it will send gravitational waves through the fabric of space and time.
the studytitled Unexpected Phenomena of PKS 2131–021 Blazar: A Unique Candidate for a Supermassive Black Hole, was published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The authors say that despite the fact that galaxy mergers are not uncommon, “there have been relatively few examples of two galaxies with supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in their cores seen in the actual merger.”
The researchers discovered the two objects in an energy-rich body known as a quasar, a very energetic and very luminous galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole.
according to California Institute of TechnologySome quasar supermassive black holes blast jets at the speed of light — in the new study, the quasar, designated PKS 2131-021, belongs to a subclass of quasars called blazars, which fire their jets at Earth.
The researchers hypothesize that PKS 2131-021, observed more than 45 years ago, is now the second known quasar with a pair of supermassive black holes about to merge.
The first known quasar is called OJ 287 and has two black holes that separate and orbit each other every nine years.
So how do two supermassive black holes converge?
When galaxies clump together, their black holes are normally pulled towards the center of the newly accreted galaxy, eventually forming a larger black hole.
When black holes merge, their immense power disrupts the fabric of the universe with gravitational waves.
This article originally appeared the sun It is reproduced here with permission.
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