BLACK HOLES

  • Recently, the Department of Science and Technology reported that Indian scientists have discovered the merger of three supermassive black holes from as many galaxies to form a triple Active Galactic Nucleus.
  • Many Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) pairs have been detected in the past, but triple AGN are extremely rare, and only a handful has been detected before using X-ray observations.

Important points:

  • Scientists were studying the AGN in the two massive barred spiral galaxies NGC7733 and NGC7734 when they detected unusual emissions from the centre of the latter and a curious movement of a large bright clump within it, having a different velocity than that of NGC7733.
  • As the third one was a separate galaxy, the scientists named it NGC7733N.
  • All three merging black holes were part of galaxies in the Toucan constellation.
  • Toucan Constellation: It is located in the southern hemisphere of the sky. It is visible at latitudes south of 15 degrees between August and October. It is completely below the horizon for anyone north of 30 degrees. It is a small constellation, occupying an area of 295 square degrees. This ranks it 48th in size among the 88 constellations in the night sky.
  • They are quite far away when compared to the nearest galactic neighbour – the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light years away.

Significance

  • The presence of a third black hole can solve the final parsec problem. The two galaxies can come closer when another black hole or a star passes by and takes away some of their combined angular momentum.
  • The finding shows that multiple accreting black holes [AGN] may be more common in our universe and especially common in galaxy groups. So the growth of black holes may be driven by such mergers in groups.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT

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