Astronomers have captured a rare celestial event — two enormous black holes merging.
The event, known as a quasar, took place when the universe was only three billion years old, a crucial time in its history when star formation was at its peak, helping shape the galaxies of today.
Researchers used a group of ground and space-based telescopes to discover the phenomenon in spectroscopic data.
The findings were published in the Nature science journal on Wednesday.
“We don't see a lot of double quasars at this early time and that's why this discovery is so exciting,” said Yu-Ching Chen of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the US.
“Knowing about the progenitor population of black holes will eventually tell us about the emergence of supermassive black holes in the early universe and how frequent those mergers could be.”
In 2019, an image of a black hole was captured by scientists for the first time. It was photographed in the Messier 87 galaxy, 55 million light years from Earth.
It had a mass of more than six billion times that of the Sun and the picture helped to prove astronomers’ theories about black holes.
The black hole's magnetic field was revealed two years later in another image.
Researchers captured the massive object in polarised light — helping to reveal magnetic fields on the edge of the black hole.
The observations could shed light on how the distant galaxy is able to launch energetic jets from its core.
The black hole merger that was recently captured could help unlock more of their secrets, including how they form.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
