Scientists capture first image of two black holes circling each other

"For years, scientists have suspected that OJ287 might be hiding two black holes, but there hasn't been a telescope powerful enough to tell them apart. By combining antennas on Earth with a satellite located halfway to the moon, the astronomers created a radio telescope effectively 15 times larger than Earth. That allowed them to take an image with a resolution 100,000 times higher than anything that had been used to observe OJ287 in the past."

"OJ287 is a type of object known as a quasar, which is a n extremely bright galactic core holding a supermassive black hole. The black hole itself doesn't give out any light, but the gas and dust falling into the singularity become so hot that they produce massive amounts of radiation. Quasar OJ287 is actually so bright that, despite being five billion light-years away, even an amateur astronomer with a decent telescope should be able to see it. However, in the 1980s, scientists realised that the quasar's light was fluctuating in a reliable 12-year pattern."

"'For the first time, we managed to get an image of two black holes circling each other.'"

Direct imaging captured two supermassive black holes orbiting each other in quasar OJ287, located roughly five billion light-years from Earth. The observation combined antennas on Earth with a satellite positioned halfway to the Moon to form a radio telescope effectively fifteen times larger than Earth, yielding resolution about 100,000 times higher than previous observations of OJ287. OJ287 is an extremely bright quasar whose accreting gas and dust emit intense radiation. The quasar displays a reliable twelve-year pattern of light variations attributed to two black holes in a twelve-year orbit, providing the first direct proof of a binary supermassive black hole system.

Read at Mail Online