MEXICO: Astronomers have discovered two massive black holes are on course to collide causing a titanic blast capable of destroying an entire galaxy.But before you break out your end-of-the-world survival packs, fear not, the galaxy is not ours.
Researchers using data from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that not only do these astronomical phenomenons exist, but they are so close to each other, they are considered to be the “tightest orbiting pair” detected so far.
The distance between them has been estimated at about one million light years away or the diameter of our solar system.
Researchers also predict that when they do the merge, which is estimated to be within a million years, the collision will have the power of 100 million supernovae (that’s superpowerful).
Black hole mergers are considered to be the most violent events in the Universe.
When they finally meet, they converge in a type of “death spiral,” and are predicted to send out ripples known as gravitational waves, a theory devised by Albert Einstein 100 years ago.
Scientists at the California Institute of Pasadena who are trying to gauge a better understanding of how galaxies and black holes merge, first found the pair earlier this year after finding an unusual light signal coming from the centre of a galaxy, named PG 1302-102.
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