Sunday, May 27, 2007

Supermassive Black Holes Set to Merge


Astronomers have located an ongoing galactic merger of galaxies supermassive blackholes! these twin monsters are collectively known as NGC6240 located about 300 million light years away and they wree recently imaged by a powerful adaptive optic system of the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Under Kectk's vision NGC6240 is revealed to have two rotating discs of stars each of which has its own supermassive blackhole. Millions of years age these have been two separate galaxies that got close to one another and began merging. This process of galactic evolution is similar to the process that built up our own milk way. Astronomers are trying to understand the connection between the blackholes and the total mass of galaxies that surrounds them! the twin supermassive blackholes are slowly falling into a common center of gravity. ths collision will radiate waves of gravitational