2023-10-26 10:38:34
MADRID, 26 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The installation of Gemini Observatory for the southern hemisphere, in Chile, has captured this image that records the consequences of a collision of spiral galaxies a billion years ago.
This is NGC 7727, a peculiar galaxy located in the constellation of Aquarius, about 90 million light years from the Milky Way. which anticipates the possible fate of our galaxy and its neighbor Andromeda. At the center of this chaotic interaction are two supermassive black holes, the closest pair to Earth ever recorded.
The image reveals vast, swirling swaths of interstellar dust and gas that look like a freshly spun cotton candy as they wrap around the merged cores of the original galaxies. As a result, today we see a scattered mix of active star-forming regions and fringes of dust surrounding the system, according to a statement from NOIRLab, which operates the telescope.
The most notable thing about NGC 7727 is undoubtedly its twin galactic nuclei, each of which houses a supermassive black hole, as astronomers have confirmed thanks to the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory. Astronomers now assume that the galaxy formed from a pair of spiral galaxies that were involved in a celestial dance about a billion years ago. Stars and nebulae were scattered and then brought back together by the gravitational tug-of-war of the pair of supermassive black holes, until the formation of the irregular knots seen in this image.
The two supermassive black holes, of which one has 154 million solar masses and the other 6.3 million solar masses, are separated from each other by approximately 1,600 light years. It is estimated that both holes will eventually merge in about 250 million years, forming an even more massive black hole while scattering violent gravitational waves through spacetime.
Because the galaxy is still recovering from the impact, most of the bright bursts seen are young stars and active stellar incubators. In fact, around 23 objects found in this system are considered candidates for young star clusters.. These clusters of stars often form in areas where star formation is greater than usual and are especially common in interacting galaxies as seen here.
Once the dust has settled, NGC 7727 will eventually become an elliptical galaxy composed of older stars with very little star formation. Like Messier 87, an elliptical galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center, the fate of the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy could be the same as this galaxy, when they merge in billions of years more.
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