NGC 6240 - Cosmic Train Wreck By Black Holes A Million Times The Mass Of The Sun
Monday, March 16, 2009 - 21:42
in Astronomy & Space
Want to see a collision between the cores of two merging galaxies, each powered by a black hole with a millions of times the mass of the sun? You're in luck. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope recently caught that very thing. The galactic cores are in a single, tangled galaxy called NGC 6240, located 400-million light years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. Millions of years ago, each core was the dense center of its own galaxy before the two galaxies collided and ripped each other apart. Now, these cores are approaching each other at tremendous speeds and preparing for the final cataclysmic collision. They will crash into each other in a few million years, a relatively short period on a galactic timescale. read more
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