DOUBLE TROU BLE

The intense power of a singular black hole is hard enough to comprehend, but what happens if there are two holes in the same galaxy?

Astronomers have found the second known galaxy hosting two black holes 400 million lightyears from Earth. Found at the centre of the galaxy NGC 7674, these two supermassive black holes are only one lightyear apart.

Termed as binary black holes, these masses occur when two galaxies collide and merge, but these holes haven’t yet devoured each other. The combined mass of these two black holes is around 40 million times that of the Sun. The pair will continue to dance around each other until finally merging and combining their masses. Currently, the estimated orbit of these giants is 100,000 years, so it may take a while before they finally meet.