Astronomers have discovered a trio of supermassive black holes locked in galaxy

News24xx.com -  Astronomers have discovered a trio of supermassive black holes locked in an awe-inspiring cosmic death dance. 

An international team of stargazers believed they’ve found a rare triple system of galaxies with gigantic monster black holes at their core. 

Each behemoth is likely to be emitting huge spurts of gravitational waves as they swirl around each other. 

The threesome forms a massive system called SDSS J0849+1114, which is believed to be made of three holes locked in orbit.

A supermassive black hole can be found lurking at the centre of most galaxies, where it’s either dormant or active. 

The three colossi believed to be lurking in SDSS J0849+1114 are active, which means they are shining brightly as they munch up anything unlucky enough to be nearby.

It’s not known what the fate of the three beasts will be. They may slowly form into a tightly-bound triple system over the next few billion years and forever orbit each other. 

The holes may also merge into one leviathan or they may end up each being catapulted out of the system and into space. 

Scientists don’t actually know whether supermassive black holes merge to form one big beast or ‘become stuck in a near-endless waltz’ after they become tied together by gravity. 

"It’s a major embarrassment for astronomy that we don’t know if supermassive black holes merge,’ said study co-author Jenny Greene, a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton, earlier this year.

Supermassive holes are as dense of millions or billions of suns and most galaxies including the galaxy have one at their centre. 

When galaxies collide, the holes meet up and begin circling each other but appear to stop at roughly 1 parsec apart, which is about 3.2 light years. 

This slowdown appears to last indefinitely and ‘only very rare groups of three or more supermassive black holes result in mergers’. 

Scientists hope that by studying the latest pair of black holes they can work out if black holes really can overcome the ‘final parsec hurdle’ and come together or are doomed to circle each other forever.

 

 

 

 

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