Two supermassive black holes are scary close and set to crash. Here's what will happen next

Scientists have spotted two supermassive black holes circling around each other, 800 million light-years from Earth.

This is the closest supermassive black hole ever detected and are set to crash with each other, which is expected to rattle the fabric of reality.

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In apaperthat was published inThe Astrophysical Journal, a team headed by a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Anna Trindade Falcao, spoke about the limits on telescope resolution which made the study of dual black hole systems difficult.

Here's how scientists spotted the black holes

The team observed the images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope of a galaxy called MCG-03-34-64, which is around 800 million light years away from Earth.

Three glowing blobs were spotted by the scientists which indicated that the glowing oxygen gas, in compressed form, was present in huge amounts.

The two black holes appeared very close in visible optical wavelengths and looked like they had merged into a single entity.

NASA, in a statement, compared the black holes to “two Sumo wrestlers squaring off.”

With the help of NASA’s Chandra observatory X-ray telescope, the astronomers observed the powerful black holes within the blobs.

“We put these pieces together and concluded that we were likely looking at two closely spaced supermassive black holes,” Trindade Falcão said.

The scientists failed to figure out the source of the third blob of oxygen spotted by Hubble.

Such black holes, also known as active galactic nuclei, are found at the centre of galaxies.There is a possibility that the black holes started circling each other after their galaxies collided.

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After more than 100 million years, the two black holes will merge and release gravitational shockwaves which willdistort space-timeover vast stretches of space.

The astrophysicists wrote that the discovery of the two black holes was “serendipitous".

Trindade Falcão said this was made possible because of “amazing resolution" of the Hubble Telescope.

“We were not expecting to see something like this. This view is not a common occurrence in the nearby universe, and told us there’s something else going on inside the galaxy," she said.

(With inputs from agencies)