Supermassive Black Holes Spotted in Merging Galaxy — is One Missing?
Astronomers have visualised the material surrounding two supermassive black holes in merging galaxies in unprecedented detail, but did they find a speculated third black hole in NGC 6240?
Astronomers have used ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array)to build an image of the gas and dust surrounding two supermassive black holes in stunning detail. The black holes are located in the butterfly-shaped galaxy NGC 6240 — located 400 million light-years from Earth — which is being created from the merger of two smaller galaxies.
The ongoing collision is creating a violent and chaotic environment and carrying along with it, the two supermassive black holes, which will eventually collide and merge themselves. The galaxy was also reported to possess a third supermassive black hole in November 2019, spurring the team to also search for another black hole in the system.
Obtaining images of the material surrounding these supermassive black holes in this oddly-shaped emerging galaxy should help astronomers understand what is happening within NGC 6240 as the process continues. Though the relatively close galaxy has been studied many times in the past, the resulting images have not been of sufficient detail to conduct such research.
