The collision of cosmic objects is one of the popular astronomical events that often occur in our observable universe. NASA astronomers recently used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to spot two colossal giant black holes moving in a strong trajectory that could lead to the most powerful cosmic explosion ever observed. These massive black holes heading toward collisions were discovered in dwarf galaxies.
Scientists earlier discovered two dwarf galaxies that recently merged during an astronomical collision. One of these dwarf galaxies is located about 760 million light years away from Earth, while the other maintains a staggering 3.2 billion light years distant within the Abell 1758S cluster. When galaxies collide, chances exist that cosmic objects within them will likely merge. Hence, NASA is keen to see how the collision of the two black holes will turn out.
How Astronomers Discovered the two Giant Black holes Spiraling Towards Collision
Scientists combined data from numerous telescopes such as optical results from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, X-ray results from Chandram, and infrared results from WISE to spot the two giant black holes heading toward collision. Further observations reveal that the two massive cosmic eaters are in their early stages of merging.
Since each black hole is in the recently discovered dwarf galaxies, their collision will merge the galaxies even more. A bridge of stars and cosmic materials tends to connect the two galaxies and this bridge is standing as the leading edge for the strongest cosmic collision scientists are about to witness. Astronomers have already witnessed black hole collisions in the past. However, this is the first time researchers discovered such a massive collision of black holes at the center of dwarf galaxies.
“Astronomers have found many examples of black holes on collision courses in large galaxies that are relatively close by,” said Marko Micic, a University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa graduate student who led the study, in a statement. “But searches for them in dwarf galaxies are much more challenging and until now had failed.”
Scientists were fascinated with the discovery and they used Chandra’s sophistication to observe the superheated materials orbiting around black holes. These materials create large amounts of X-rays which helped astronomers to understand more about black holes. Researchers continued their search for pairing black holes heading on a collision until they came up with the latest discovery.
Almost every astrophysicist across the world is fascinated with the existence of dwarf galaxies as they help them to understand more about how the universe went from the infant stage to its current age.
“Most of the dwarf galaxies and black holes in the early universe are likely to have grown much larger by now, thanks to repeated mergers,” said co-author Brenna Wells, also of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. “In some ways, dwarf galaxies are our galactic ancestors, which have evolved over billions of years to produce large galaxies like our own Milky Way.”
What Scientists learned from the new study
This latest discovery enabled astronomers to compare galaxies merging that occurred billions of years ago with the ones happening in this present age. Astrophysicist Olivia Holmes from the University of Alabama focuses on studying and answering some toughest questions about interstellar relationships between ancient galaxies.
Scientist believes that finding answers to this question could provide details about black holes and star formation. Astronomers need to conduct follow-up investigations to improve the outcome of this study and improve our knowledge of black holes and galaxies as infants. This study is published in the Astrophysical Journal, and you can read it on the preprint server arXiv.
Conclusion
Studies like this often upon new knowledge about astronomy. Scientists are still hoping to conduct more studies and more about our universe as an infant. What do you think about this galactic collision that is about to occur?
