Astronomers Unravel the Mystery of the Universe’s Heaviest Black Hole Binary
The merging of two supermassive black holes is a phenomenon that has long been predicted, though never directly observed. One theory put forth by astronomers is that these systems are so massive that they deplete their host galaxy of the stellar material needed to drive their merger. Using archival data from the Gemini North telescope, a team of astronomers have found a binary black hole that provides strong evidence supporting this idea. The team estimates the binary’s mass to be a whopping 28 billion times that of the…