About 10 thousand light years away, two supermassive black holes (that is, billions of times the mass of the Sun) are approaching, on an imminent collision course and at a distance equivalent to fifty times the path between our nearest star and Pluto.
The surprising find is called VFD 2131-021 and belongs to a subclass of quasars – supermassive black holes that are feeding on material from a surrounding disk – called blazaresin which an “energy jet” points towards our planet.
Thanks to scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), including researchers from the Chilean Universities and Conceptiondiscovered that the encounter, estimated to be about 10,000 years away, will be so powerful that it will cause gravitational waves throughout the cosmos.
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In addition, the data that allowed making this discovery is part of the blazar monitoring program that was developed during the doctoral thesis at Caltech of Walter Max-Moerbeckassistant professor in the Astronomy Department of the University of Chile and researcher at the CATA Astrophysics Center.
“The observational design, including the calibration of the data and the automatic programming of the observations, was developed by me more than a decade ago. I also participated in the development of simulation methods that allow studying the statistical significance of these signals”, he commented in a statement.
The evidence comes from observations that have been made over 45 years. The movement causes periodic changes in the brightness of the quasar in the radio bandwhich have been observed by five different observatories, including the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) in California.
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“The periods of these variations were determined using various techniques, among them the ‘Wavelet transform’ which was analyzed by Philipe Vergara, student of the Master of Science in Astronomy at the University of Concepción. In this way it is possible to determine if the period is stable or presents variations,” explained Rodrigo Reeves associate professor of the Department of Astronomy of the University of Concepción and also a CATA researcher.
Evidence suggests that most galaxies harbor huge black holes at their centers, including our own Milky Way. When two galaxies merge, their black holes move toward the center of the galaxy. recent galaxy and eventually also merge to form a single, more massive black hole.
“It is very exciting to see that it is still possible to continue doing unexpected discoveries like this. It is a great privilege to be part of this international team that I am sure will continue to surprise us”, concluded Max-Moerbeck.
The research was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters under the title “The Unforeseen Phenomenology of Blazar PKS 2131-021: A Single Binary Supermassive Black Hole Candidate”.