Virgo Black Holes On Collision Course, Closer Than Ever

Collision of two monster black holes that was earlier predicted to take places millions of years later may happen sooner, a new study claims.

According to CNET, the two black holes in Virgo constellation are said to be closer than one-light week away. The closest galactic-pair observed until now have been 20 light years apart. Scientists predict that the energy released during the merger of galaxies will rattle the fabric of space and time, producing gravitational waves not unlike what Big Bang is said to have produced.

"This is the closest we've come to observing two black holes on their way to a massive collision. Watching this process reach its culmination can tell us whether black holes and galaxies grow at the same rate, and ultimately test a fundamental property of space-time: its ability to carry vibrations called gravitational waves, produced in the last, most violent, stage of the merger," said the study's senior author, Zoltan Haiman, an astronomer at Columbia University.

The black hole pair was first spotted by its giveaway, PG 1302-102, nearly 3.2 billion light years away. The quasar was blinking periodically, indicating the impending cannibalization of one black hole by a bigger one. When it was discovered, the pair's collision was estimated to happen anywhere between 10,000 years to several million years from now. The new study however offers a best estimate of 100,000 years.

Following increased detection of black hole pairs, cosmologists hope to witness a collision in the next decade. Studies such as the current one have also led to development of accurate methods to determine black hole pairs and time of collision.

"We can start to put numbers on the rates that black holes come together and build up into larger black holes, and use what we're learning to search for more black hole pairs," said study coauthor David Schiminovich, an astronomer at Columbia.

The study was published in the journal Nature.