Supermassive Black Holes Collide to Become Even More Super and Massive
- By Betsy Mason
- October 7, 2009 |
- 10:01 am |
- Categories: Space
New X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory added to an image previously captured by the Hubble Space Telescope created this amazing composite image of two black holes on the verge of colliding.
The two supermassive black holes, which show up as two points of light in the center of the galaxy NGC 6240, are only 3,000 light-years apart. Astronomers think the two will eventually combine into a single, larger black hole.
Also combining to make a whole greater than the sum of its parts are the two pieces of this image, shown below. Space photos are often a combination of multiple images and sets of data, designed to bring out the details and beauty of the subject. In this case, Chandra’s X-ray data and Hubble’s optical data come together to create an image so stunning that it looks like it must be an artist’s rendering.
Images: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/C.Canizares, M.Nowak. Optical: NASA/STScI.
See Also:
- Mindblowingspacephotos
- Strange Eye-Shaped Galaxy Has Black-Hole Iris
- Spectacular New Image of Black Hole Jets
- Hubble Monitors Spectacular Black Hole Flare
- New Class of Black Holes Discovered
- 5 Atrocious Science Clichés to Throw Down a Black Hole
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Dang. Still 3,000 light-years apart. Guess we won’t be able to see the fireworks.
You mean already collided. I suppose “we” won’t truly know for another 3000 years, but we’re looking in the past, not the future…This galaxy is 400 million light years away, so it “happened” a long time ago.
a long long LONG time ago
thats what I love about space and time. The current sense of time is skewed as you look into the heavens. as you look into the sky you are not looking at the sky as it currently is, you are looking into the past anywhere from a few years to a few thousand and million years in the past since that is how long it took the light to reach us today.
The best explanation to how spacetime works is to read Hawkings “A brief history of time” It revealed alot to me and is a freaking awesome book. It is available to read via PDF if you google it.
Wow, that looks like counterclockwise rotational spin on the chandra image.. any one know??
We should be quite thankful they lie at the distance they do. I would think the incredible violence of their collision can only be exacerbated by the fact that they would both appear to be active to some degree.
I agree with the previous comment, A Brief History of Time is a great book. Very informative and Hawkings is able to explain complex ideas so almost anyone can understand it. Highly recommended!
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
“You mean already collided. I suppose “we” won’t truly know for another 3000 years, but we’re looking in the past, not the future…This galaxy is 400 million light years away, so it “happened” a long time ago.”
OK. So 400 million years ago, these two black holes were 3000 light-years apart. We don’t know how fast they were moving towards one another. But we DO know they are not moving at the speed of light, or really anything near that; something like .01% of the speed of light. So it’s going to be a LOT longer (like 30 million years) before “we” see that light.
@whoever – Assuming they coalesced at a rate of 1 light year per year (big assumption), the event occurred 399,997,000 years ago (-3000 to happen in “relative” future + 400 million to reach us).
Lol this is crazy. Super massive becoming more massive. That is like superman colliding with doomsday and becoming 1.
Acai Burn Extreme
When two black holes collide they typically don’t just run right into each other. Instead, they tend to orbit each other just like we orbit the sun. In order to collide, they must lose angular momentum. They can do so via gravitational radiation (incredibly weak until these objects are really close) or by “giving” some of their angular momentum to stars and gas they encounter in the galaxies. Thus, figuring out the amount of time it will take for these guys to collide is a bit more complicated that one may think.
@johnleb: It’s pretty much impossible to tell which way these guys are orbiting from the images there. Even if you did know which way they were orbiting, “clockwise” versus “counter-clockwise) is a bit arbitrary, since you could just look at the galaxy the other way around and it will be orbiting the opposite way.
You would think two super massive black holes would snap together like a couple of magnets…
I know they are 3,000 light years apart from each other, but they do seem to effect quite a large area around them, and they are so huge that 3,000 light years seems like a trivial distance for them… Heck just the speck of light seems to be larger then the distance between them…
hmmmm… neat pictures tho. thanks.
“OMG, It’s full of stars” … 2001 A Space Odyssey
Simply amazing, God’s design truly works in magnificent ways. I wonder what he’s trying to tell us through these black hole collisions?
In response to ninevoltz Question
If you live in this galaxy DUCK AND COVER!!!
I wnanna know , can their collision effect our world “Earth” ?
Anyone who know about this,please explain me ,by commenting here or email me.
My Email is soethan.sgg@gmail.com
^^^
I don’t think God would allow anything bad to happen to Earth due to this collision. I think it is just there for us to observe.
@soethan: No, it’s waaay too far away to bother us.
However, in about 3.5 billion years we’ll merge with the galaxy Andromeda, bringing on a much closer merging of black holes, along with all sorts of stars being flung every which way. This could potentially have some bad effects on us… but we’ll probably still be okay.
Am I the only one stupid enough to wonder why two “black holes” show up as massively bright objects?
@fivearrows: From the article: “New X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory…” Black holes may not put out light but they do put out a lot of X-Rays. These are X-Ray images.
Well, I think the nature of his question is that we’ve all heard light – including X-rays – cannot escape from black holes. This is correct. What you’re actually seeing is the energetic emissions of stuff as it approaches and falls into the black holes, and not the black holes themselves. A lot of gravitational energy is given up as objects plummet towards the black holes, and this energy tends to turn into heat, giving the bright emissions we see. The black holes not really nearly as physically large as the images would make it seem, but the light emitting regions can be rather large.
I was captured and anally probed by an alien who was there when the two black holes collided and said it wasn’t all that spectacular.
“Am I the only one stupid enough to wonder why two “black holes” show up as massively bright objects?”
Yes, you are.
@ninevoltz: a) I think fivearrows’ question is not stupid at all, unless you are assuming that (s)he is an astrophysicist. b) how smart are you for assuming that “I don’t think God would allow anything bad to happen to Earth”? Sounds pretty earth-centric given the massiveness of the the universe which we are still learning more and more about every day.
Open your own brain before you dismiss others’ questions as “stupid”.