On Wednesday, George Djorgovski and collaborators reported in the journal Nature on an unusual light signal they say suggests two supermassive black holes are merging, a phenomenon never seen before, though theorized.
The discovery could clarify how black holes merge and galaxies evolve, and could also provide a better understanding of the so-called "final parsec problem" — the inability of theories to predict how, or even how quickly, the final phases of black hole mergers happen.
The team discovered the light coming from quasar PG 1302-102 in data from the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CTRS), which is able to study light sources from four fifths of the night sky using three ground-based US and Australian telescopes.
Coauthor and Caltech computational scientist Matthew Graham emphasized the final stages of these black hole mergers are not well understood.
Image: Geek3CTRS has so far identified 20 quasars with similar signals, but Graham said this one is the best example because it has a clear signal that recurs about every five years, similar to a sine wave (see the 2D graph shown on the left).


Have an opinion on this story? Share it!
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Researchers say light signal from space suggests merging black holes