Two supermassive black holes weigh 28 billion times more than sun: Scientists

Two supermassive black holes, which were discovered in collision-created 'fossil galaxies', are so huge in size that they do not collide and merge in the cosmic space.

This black hole system is present inside the elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379. When the two black holes were weighed jointly by the scientists, it was found that they were 28 billion times heavier than the sun. Hence, this one became the most massive black hole binary ever spotted.

Also, the binary components of the black hole system are the closest in this supermassive black hole pair, with only a distance of 24 light-years between them.

Scientists for the first time have observed a supermassive black hole binary in such detail and tried to understand the two objects separately.

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Interestingly, the proximity that the black holes share suggests that they should collide and merge, but they appear to remain locked in the same orbital dance close to each other for more than three billion years.

The team of scientists, who found the binary in the data which was collected by the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, believethat the supermassive black holes are being stopped from merging because of their tremendous mass.

"Normally, it seems that galaxies with lighter black hole pairs have enough stars and mass to drive the two together quickly," said Roger Romani, a member of the team and physics professor at Stanford University, in a statement.

Supermassive black holes filled with lots of stars, gas: Scientists

"Since this pair is so heavy, it required lots of stars and gas to get the job done. But the binary has scoured the central galaxy of such matter, leaving it stalled," he added.

B2 0402+379 is a "fossil cluster" which helps scientists understand what occurs when the stars and gas of an entire galaxy cluster merge and form one single massive galaxy.

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The huge amount of mass at the heart of the two supermassive black holes suggests that they were created by a chain of mergers between smaller black holes as multiple galaxies in the cluster merged together.

Scientists feel that at the heart of most of the galaxies is a supermassive black hole which has a mass equivalent to that of millions or billions of suns.

(With inputs from agencies)