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Two black holes in distant galaxy seen entwined in death spiral

An artist's impression of two black holes in a distant galaxy. Credit: NASA/JPL
An artist's impression of two black holes in a distant galaxy. Credit: NASA/JPL

PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. astronomers report they've spotted two supermassive black holes at the heart of a remote galaxy, apparently circling each other in a death spiral.

The sighting of what is being termed a rare phenomenon was made with the help of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., reported Tuesday.

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Follow-up observations by ground telescopes have revealed unusual features in the galaxy, including a lumpy jet thought to be the result of one black hole causing the jet of the other to sway, astronomers said.

"We think the jet of one black hole is being wiggled by the other, like a dance with ribbons," JPL scientist Chao-Wei Tsai, lead author of a paper appearing in the Astrophysical Journal, said. "If so, it is likely the two black holes are fairly close and gravitationally entwined."

The discovery could reveal clues to how supermassive black holes might be created by a slow merger of two of them, the scientists said.

Astronomers sifted through WISE images of millions of actively feeding supermassive black holes spread throughout our sky before the oddball, known as WISE J233237.05-505643.5, jumped out.

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"At first we thought this galaxy's unusual properties seen by WISE might mean it was forming new stars at a furious rate," study co-author Peter Eisenhardt, WISE project manager at JPL, said. "But on closer inspection, it looks more like the death spiral of merging giant black holes."

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