Astronomers have found a pair of supermassive black holes in the center of an ordinary galaxy for the first time.
The researchers made the discovery with the help of the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, according to Sci-News.
Astronomers can study binary supermassive black holes to learn about the way galaxies evolved into their current shapes and sizes.
While black holes in an active galaxy are constantly fed by gas clouds, those in inactive galaxies, such as the ones recently found, are fueled by tidal disruption events that take place irregularly, which makes them impossible to predict, io9 reported.
It is difficult to find black holes in inactive galaxies, also known as quiescent galaxies, because there are no gas clouds to feed the black holes, which results in the core of the holes becoming very dark. The astronomers involved in the find had to wait for a tidal disruption event in order to spot a black hole. The event took place as a star was pulled apart by the black hole's gravity, which resulted in a burst of X-rays.
Researchers hope that this discovery will lead to future findings of pairs of black holes, UPI reported.
"There might be a whole population of quiescent galaxies that host binary black holes in their centers," said Stefanie Komossa, astronomer from the Max Planck Society in Germany.
Scientists also hope to use binary black holes to find out how and at what rate galaxies merge together.
"Once we have detected thousands of tidal disruption events, we can begin to extract reliable statistics about the rate at which galaxies merge," Komossa said.
The researchers found that the separation of the black holes is almost 2 thousandths of a light year - quite small, and about the width of our solar system, io9 reported.
They also found that the two black holes will eventually merge. When the merger takes place, the black holes will release a huge burst of energy into the universe.
The final merger will be the strongest source of gravitational waves in the universe, UPI reported.
The details of the discovery will be published in this May's The Astrophysical Journal.
