|
Even today, information about Black holes continue to amaze scientist. Images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory have capture, for the first time, two super-massive black holes circling each other. The black holes will whirl around each other for approximately 100 million years, until they merge.
The two black holes are about the same size as the one in the center of our galaxy and is about the mass of 100 million of our suns. The black holes supposedly are the remains of two separate galaxies that merged 100 million years ago to make the NGC6240 Galaxy. When the galaxies blended they left one extremely bright galaxy with two black holes circling each other on a collision course.
Scientist believe that in about four billion years, the billions of stars in the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxies will merge and a similar situation will happen with the two super-massive black holes of our galaxies.
Astronomers say that the two black holes of the NGC6240 galaxy are about 3,000 light-years apart and are traveling at about 22,000 mph. As the black holes grow closer and closer their speed will increase and nearly reach the speed of light before merging, about 671 million mph.
When the black holes merge, their momentum will be converted to gravitational waves and the black holes will spew radiation throughout the universe. Since momentum can't be stopped, the gravitational waves will travel infinite distances thus shifting the gravitational constant throughout the universe.
|
|
