Astronomers Measure Heaviest Black Hole Pair Ever Found | NOIRLab
Cosmoview Episode 76: Using archival data from the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, a team of astronomers have measured the heaviest pair of supermassive black holes ever found. The merging of two supermassive black holes is a phenomenon that has long been predicted, though never observed. This massive pair gives clues as to why such an event seems so unlikely in the Universe.
Nearly every massive galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its center. When two galaxies merge, their black holes can form a binary pair, meaning they are in a bound orbit with one another. It is hypothesized that these binaries are fated to eventually merge, but this has never been observed. The question of whether such an event is possible has been a topic of discussion amongst astronomers for decades. In a recently published paper in The Astrophysical Journal, a team of astronomers have presented new insight into this question.
Research paper:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad14fa
The team used data from the Gemini North telescope in Hawai‘i to analyze a supermassive black hole binary located within the elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379. This is the only supermassive black hole binary ever resolved in enough detail to see both objects separately, and it holds the record for having the smallest separation ever directly measured—a mere 24 light-years. While this close separation foretells a powerful merger, further study revealed that the pair has been stalled at this distance for over three billion years, begging the question: "Why the delay?"
The team estimates the binary’s mass to be a whopping 28 billion times that of the Sun, qualifying the pair as the heaviest binary black hole ever measured. Not only does this measurement give valuable context to the formation of the binary system and the history of its host galaxy, but it supports the long-standing theory that the mass of a supermassive binary black hole plays a key role in stalling a potential merger.
With new knowledge of the system’s extremely large mass, the team concluded that an exceptionally large number of stars would have been needed to slow the binary’s orbit enough to bring them this close. In the process, the black holes seem to have flung out nearly all the matter in their vicinity, leaving the core of the galaxy starved of stars and gas. With no more material available to further slow the pair’s orbit, their merger has stalled in its final stages.
Since 2002 Gemini North has also been known as the Frederick C. Gillett Gemini North telescope. Dr. Gillett, who died in April 2001, was one of the primary visionaries of the Gemini telescopes. He was instrumental in assuring that the design of Gemini's twin 8-meter telescopes would make major scientific contributions to astronomy.
Learn more here: https://www.gemini.edu
Video Credit:
Images and Videos: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. daSilva/M. Zamani, ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser), N. Bartmann
Duration: 1 minute, 27 seconds
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