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Within galaxy OJ 287, about 3.5 billion light-years from Earth, two black holes are trapped in an endless encounter. RT explains that The supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy is approximately 18 billion times more massive than the sun. Their much smaller but still huge ‘dance’ partner is ‘only’ 150 million times more massive than the sun.
Every 4,380 days (12 years), the small black hole crashes into a huge debris disk that spins around the supermassive black hole. At that moment, it creates an explosion of light that can be visualized from Earth because it is brighter than a billion stars. An animation, created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, shows the phenomenon perfectly.
The smallest black hole does not have perfect timing. It crashes through the disk at irregular intervals due to its oblong orbit, making it difficult for scientists to see exactly when the next light burst could occur. So in 2010, a team of researchers set out to create a model to predict when they might see the next mega flare. Her model correctly predicted the appearance of a light outbreak in three weeks.
A black hole is a finite region of space within which there is a mass concentration high and dense enough to generate a gravitational field such that no material particle, not even light, can escape it.
Scientists at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, in 2018 were able to refine the model to predict that the next flare would peak on July 31, 2019.
New research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, shows that the scientists’ predictions were correct, and fortunately NASA’s Spitzer telescope was observing the OJ 287 at just the right time.
“It was extremely fortunate that we were able to capture the peak of this flare with the Spitzer, because no other man-made instrument was able to accomplish this feat at that specific time,” explained Spitzer project member Seppo Laine.
This telescope provided further evidence for the so-called baldness theorem, which states that black holes are smooth and symmetrical.
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