Calay News
Astronomers have discovered two pairs of dwarf galaxies that are merging and contain giant black holes on a collision course. This observation is important because it provides clues about the early universe and our own galaxy. This finding is the first of its kind and is expected to provide information about the time when these pairs of dwarf galaxies with colliding black holes were most common in the early Universe.
The pairs of dwarf galaxies with colliding black holes are found in two distinct galaxy groups: Abell 133, about 760 million light-years from Earth, and Abell 1758S, about 3.2 billion light-years away. The smaller size of these galaxy pairs makes their light signals fainter and more difficult to detect.
The galaxies contain stars with a total mass less than about 3 billion times that of the sun, while our Milky Way is home to the equivalent of about 60 billion suns. To find these galaxies, the researchers combined data from several telescopes, including NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and the Canada-France-Hawaii observatory.
The X-ray data were the most important because they detected the largest signals emitted by the black hole pairs. The researchers hope that the follow-up of these systems will provide valuable information for understanding the crucial processes occurring in galaxies and their young black holes. In summary, the discovery of these two pairs of merging dwarf galaxies with giant black holes on a collision course provides important information about the early Universe and galaxy formation and will help astronomers better understand our own galaxy.
