Astronomers have discovered a rare pair of actively feeding supermassive black holes, or quasars, on the verge of colliding. This unique system, J0749+2255, was found in merged galaxies when the universe was 3 billion years old. The discovery provides insights into the emergence of supermassive blac
Astronomers have made a rare discovery in the early universe involving two actively feeding supermassive black holes – or quasars – just 10,000 light-years apart from each other, that are on the verge of a colossal collision.
Using a suite of space- and ground-based telescopes, including two Maunakea Observatories in Hawaiʻi – W. M. Keck Observatory and Gemini North – the researchers found the pair ofThe study, led by theFinding such a system is difficult because of the challenge of distinguishing two black holes individually when they are so close together.
J0749+2255 is highly unusual because the system has not one, but two quasars that are active at the same time, and are close enough that they will eventually merge. “We don’t see a lot of double quasars at this early time in the universe. And that’s why this discovery is so exciting,” said graduate student Yu-Ching Chen of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, lead author of this study.
A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of a pair of quasars that existed when the universe was just 3 billion years old. They are embedded inside a pair of colliding galaxies. The quasars are separated by less than the size of a single galaxy. Quasars are powered by voracious, supermassive black holes blasting out ferocious fountains of energy as they engorge themselves on gas, dust, and anything else within their gravitational grasp. The black holes will eventually merge.
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