SPACE scientists have spotted the “final stages” of galaxies merging together for the very first time. The distant galaxies are drawing closer, which will inevitably lead to two supermassive black holes crashing into each other – with “monstrous” results. A team at the University of Maryland surveyed hundreds of nearby galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope. And in a research paper published in Nature, astronomers revealed how they spotted the two galaxies on the brink of “coalescing” – effectively become a single super-galaxy. Importantly, these galaxies both contain black holes at their core, which will inevitably join together too. “Seeing the pairs of merging galaxy nuclei associated with these huge black holes together was pretty amazing,” said Michael Koss, a research scientist at Eureka Scientific who led the team. “In our study, we see two galaxy nuclei right when the images were taken,” he explained. “You can’t argue with it; it’s a very ‘clean’ result, which doesn’t rely on interpretation.” Scientists have evidence of other galaxies merging, but this is the first time they’ve captured an image of such a late stage in the process. It’s a stunning preview of what astronomers believe was common in the early universe – when galaxies would’ve merged often. The black holes, when they collide, will release powerful gravitational wave energy. These ripples in space-time were recently detected for the very first time, and will be produced when these latest galaxies finish merging. Darkly, these images actually tease Earth’s future, when our own Milky… [Read full story]
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