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gary
11-07-2019, 02:04 PM
In a post today (https://phys.org/news/2019-07-pair-supermassive-black-holes-collision.html)by Thomas Sumner at the Simons Foundation in New York,
it is reported that two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have been discovered
that are on a collision course.



The pair of black holes were first indirectly detected with the Hubble Space Telescope.

The abstract to the published paper seems to suggest that if the pair's
drawing toward each other is not detected as contributing to the gravitational
wave background (GWB) over the coming years that this may
indicate that, to quote from the authors, "SMBHs merge only over
extremely long timescales, remaining as close separation binaries for
many Hubble times, the so-called "final-parsec problem." "

I would imagine there would be a lot of astronomers out there hoping
they will collide soon to gather the data! :lol:

Article here :-
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-pair-supermassive-black-holes-collision.html

Abstract. Andy D. Goulding et al, "Discovery of a Close-separation Binary
Quasar at the Heart of a z ∼ 0.2 Merging Galaxy and Its Implications for
Low-frequency Gravitational Waves", The Astrophysical Journal (2019).
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab2a14

multiweb
11-07-2019, 05:24 PM
I can see a lot of excited scientists in the LIGO sites now.

Wavytone
20-07-2019, 03:44 PM
Definitely one for LIGO ...