‘Supermassive’ black holes closest to Earth

Astronomers have observed a pair of “supermassive” black holes which are the closest to Earth so far seen.

There is also much less separation between the two objects, 89 million light years away, than any other pair previously spotted and they will eventually merge, researchers say.

Scientists determined the masses of the two objects by looking at how their gravitational pull influences the motion of the stars around them. The larger has a mass almost 154 million times that of the Sun.

Black holes are spheroidal regions of space that have suffered gravitational collapse and from which nothing, not even light, can escape.