Supermassive Black Holes

Astronomers were surprised when the VLA revealed that a bright new object has appeared near the core of a famous galaxy. They think it’s a second supermassive black hole, indicating that the galaxy has merged with another in the past.

Astronomers using the super-sharp radio vision of the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) have found the shredded remains of a galaxy that passed through a larger galaxy, leaving only the smaller galaxy’s nearly-naked supermassive black hole to emerge and speed away at more than 2,000 miles per second.

Using an orbiting radio-astronomy satellite combined with 15 ground-based radio telescopes, astronomers have made the highest-resolution, or most-detailed, astronomical image yet.

There may be fewer pairs of supermassive black holes orbiting each other at the cores of giant galaxies than previously thought.