Two new papers have provided some startling new insights into a rare phenomenon in the universe: the integration of three galaxies and the interactions that are taking place between the supermassive black holes at the center of these bodies. When galaxies merge, there are two main types of activity. The first is the formation of new stars, as strong tidal forces between the two galaxies push the gas clouds together. The second is the emergence of the “active galactic nucleus” or AGN. The material thrown into the core of the galaxy awakens a supermassive black hole. Most of this material is gabbled and the rest is thrown into a strong frenzy.
The work showed that these seven galaxies triple the difference in activity levels. No one seems to have any AGN. In one they only got one AGN. In one, they found only one AGN, so only one of the three supermassive black holes is “switched on”. Four of these are dual AGNs, two are black hole feeding. The latter is an incredible triple-AGN, already known to astronomers. The team found that the supermassive black holes in question were located between 10,000 and 30000 light-years apart. They also found that galaxies with increasing supermassive black holes are much richer than dust and gas, matching the theoretical prediction very well.
Lead author Adi Foord of Stanford University, said in a statement, “There have been a lot of studies on what happens to supermassive black holes when two galaxies come together.” “One of the first to see regularly what happens to black holes when three galaxies come together.”
Study insights are important to better understand these complex issues. The interaction between the interaction and the two supermassive black holes is a complex and heated controversial field in astronomy – mostly because we don’t know how it happens. Gravitational-wave observations have shown that in contrast to stellar-shaped black hole attachments, supermassive black holes simply do not converge and easily collide in calculations. The theory suggests that two supermassive black holes in the two right-hand trajectories will begin to orbit each other and reach closer to the end to find a pretty slightly stationary orbit where it should be stationary.
From there, the only way for them to collide is if they continue to lose orbital power. Very few measures have been suggested for making it, but there is no guarantee. A third supermassive black hole would certainly work because gravitational interaction would favor collisions. The work was made possible thanks to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, AGN’s lunar X-ray detection data, And data from the WISE Mission and the Two Micron All Sky Telescope and the gas and dust in these galaxies, all of which are no less than one billion light-years from Earth. The findings were presented at the 237th American Astronomical Society meeting and were accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (prints are available here and here).
