In our world, collisions between black constellations are not rare. But what astronomers have just observed is not quite like the others. Because it happens at the dawn of history. At a time when it is difficult to even imagine the possibility of the existence of massive black holes!
Our universe is massive. But sometimes cosmic bodies collide. It's very common. Including black holes. Over the past ten years, interferometers LegoLego And VirgoVirgo Thus about a hundred were detected. Today, thanks to data sent by the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team was able to discover itAstronomy scientistsAstronomy scientists He was able to observe a collision between two massive black holes. The collision is somewhat unusual because it occurred when the universe was no more than 740 million years old. Which makes it the farthest thing ever discovered.
Black holes have a mass tens of millions of times the mass of our Sun
“We found evidence of a very dense gas movementsmovements The near slopes of the black hole, as well as hot, highly ionized gas illuminated by the energetic radiation that black holes typically produce during their vortex.AccumulationAccumulationHannah Opler, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge (UK), says in her article Press release from the European Space Agency (European Space AgencyEuropean Space Agency). Thanks to the unprecedented resolution of images recorded by the James Webb Space Telescope, we were able to spatially separate the two black holes.
The system is known as ZS7. Ha MassMass My star is from our arrangement galaxygalaxy Neighbor, Large Magellanic CloudLarge Magellanic Cloud. Astronomers today tell us that it actually consists of two black holes with a mass perhaps about 50 million times the mass of the Sun. sunsun all.
Supermassive black hole collisions and the evolution of galaxies
Remember, researchers now know that supermassive black holes of this type are hidden in the most massive galaxies in the local universe. Including our galaxy, the Milky Way. They believe that these black holes had a significant impact on the evolution of these galaxies. However, they still didn't really understand how these things had become so huge. Especially since the discovery of such black holes already existed during the first billion years after the Stone Age the great explosionthe great explosion Indicates that their growth must occur very quickly.
Results obtained here using the James Webb Space Telescope confirm the role of massive black holes in the evolution of galaxies. They also suggest that the collision then fusionfusion Black holes represent an important path through which these massive objects can grow rapidly, even in…dawndawn Universe.
Gravitational waves after black hole merger
After the collision, once the two supermassive black holes merge, they will be born Gravitational wavesGravitational waves Which can be detected by next generation interferometers like the mission Space antenna laser interferometer (LisaLisa). This has been approved by the European Space Agency and will be the first space observatory dedicated to studying gravitational waves. Given this latest discovery, researchers believe they can detect many more relatively light black hole mergers than they previously thought.
In the meantime, astronomers will continue to use the James Webb Space Telescope to study the relationship between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies during the first billion years of the universe in detail. They will attempt to systematically characterize black hole mergers to determine… SpeedSpeed in which they occurred in the early cosmic epochs and we particularly evaluate their role in the early growth of black holes.
