In a first, scientists observe pair of supermassive black holes closest to collision course

A newly-discovered pair of supermassive black holes are on their way to colliding with each other and are also the closest pair of supermassive black holes ever discovered.

An artist's impression depicting a late-stage galactic merger and the two newly-discovered black holes within it. (Image credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); M. Weiss, NRAO/AUI/NSF)

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Astronomers have spotted a pair of supermassive black holes that are well on their way to crashing into each other in a cataclysmic collision. According to the Simons Foundation, this doomed pair of supermassive black holes are the closest to colliding, and this is the first time that scientists have observed the celestial event at this scale.

Even though the two cosmic behemoths are considered to be close in cosmological terms, they are still about 750 light-years apart, and they will not be merging for a few hundred million years. According to Chiara Mingarelli, co-author of a study on the research published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the distance between the two black holes “is fairly close to the limit of what we can detect,” which is the reason why the discovery is so exciting to the astronomers.

The small separation between the two black holes meant that the astronomers were only able to differentiate between the objects by combining multiple observations from seven telescopes. Of course, these supermassive black holes are not directly visible through an optical telescope. Rather, they are usually surrounded by bright bunches of luminous stars and warm gas drawn, which can be used to confirm their existence.

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The black holes are located within a “mash-up” of two galaxies that collided around 480 million light-years away from our planet. Such supermassive black holes live at the centre of most galaxies, gorging on the surrounding gas, dust, stars and more to get bigger and bigger. The pair of newly-discovered stars can be considered proper heavyweights, weighing in at 200 million and 125 million times the mass of our Sun each.

These two black holes were put on a collision course with each other as their host galaxies merged. Soon, they will begin circling each other in a tightening orbital dance. According to the Simons Foundation, they will eventually begin producing stronger gravitational waves than any that have been previously detected before crashing into each other to form an even more massive black hole.

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