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The OJ 287 binary system with two supergiant black holes. (Image: NASA / JPL)
The observations give humanity a stronger inference about our learning about black holes and gravitational waves, and about how massive celestial bodies interact.
- News18.com
- Last update: April 30, 2020 5:18 p.m. IST
In a galaxy far, far away, two black holes share a unique relationship. While a single black hole is enigmatic enough, galaxy OJ 287, which is 3.5 billion years from Earth, has TWO black holes that “ dance ” to each other, linked by relative gravitational interactions. The main black hole at the center of this system is one of the largest dying stars ever observed by us, and it has a staggering 18 billion times the mass of our Sun. A black hole orbits around the central black hole. ‘ insignificant ‘which is 120 times smaller than the giant in the center. This too, however, is 150 million times the mass of our Sun. Now, a group of Indian scientists from the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research, Mumbai, has helped create the most accurate model to predict how the two black holes will react between yes.
The sight is very rare, and so far the only one of its kind that we have seen so far. The central black hole exerts an incredible amount of gravitational force around its periphery, and it also has huge gas disks surrounding it. Every 12 years, the smallest black hole passes through these discs twice at irregular intervals. The result is a flash of light that is brighter than the maximum brightness of more than a trillion stars. In fact, the forces of the gigantic black hole in the center are so gigantic that the orbit of the smallest black hole changes with the completion of each circle. This is what arouses curiosity regarding the binary system, and a fortuitous observation made by Spitzer, the now retired NASA legendary space telescope, should be greatly appreciated for that.
On July 31, which is when the TIFR team of scientists had predicted that the next black hole dance collision would occur, the OJ 287 system appeared to be located on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth, or behind it. This made it impossible for any telescope on the ground or in Earth’s orbit to observe the supposed crash of OJ 287. Scientists were trying to improve the study model of binary black hole interactions, and their new model had claimed that it was accurate within four hours after the collision observation point. Fortunately, an old friend came to the rescue.
Spitzer, which was 254 million km from Earth on July 31, 2019, was the only object accessible to humanity with a viewpoint to see OJ 287. Fortunately, the observations made showed that scientist Lankeswar Dey and the Your TIFR equipment model was indeed accurate. This gives humanity’s space research a new capacity and will help to better understand how gravitational waves can alter the trajectories of bodies in outer space. Furthermore, it provides information to investigate around the surface of black holes, concluding that at least our basic understanding of black holes is more or less correct.
The incredible interaction has been illustrated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and can be seen in the cover image above (click to enlarge). It’s safe to say that this is the most incredible image you would see today.
