Little Black Holes in Disk of Big Black Hole (IMAGE)

Advanced Science Research Center, GC/CUNY

Little Black Holes in Disk of Big Black Hole

Caption

Artist's concept of a supermassive black hole and its surrounding disk of gas. Embedded within this disk are two smaller black holes orbiting one another. Using data from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at Palomar Observatory, researchers have identified a flare of light suspected to have come from one such binary pair soon after they merged into a larger black hole. The merger of the black holes would have caused them to move in one direction within the disk, plowing through the gas in such a way to create a light flare. The finding, while not confirmed, could amount to the first time that light has been seen from a coalescing pair of black holes. These merging black holes were first spotted on May 21, 2019, by the National Science Foundation's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and the European Virgo detector, which picked up gravitational waves generated by the merger.

Credit

Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)

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