Two massive black holes swept clean the center of a galaxy ⚡ экспресс
The Webb and Hubble telescopes have discovered a vast void in the stellar population at the center of a galaxy in the Abell402 cluster—a deficit of stars totaling 2 billion solar masses. This isn’t a dust illusion, but a real gap. Data point to a supermassive black hole of 60±40 billion solar masses, and possibly a pair of active black holes—a candidate for the most massive binary system. The void was likely 'swept out' by gravitational interactions between these heavyweights and stars, like an invisible billiard cue. This discovery lets us see how black holes shape galaxy structure.
Astronomers used the infrared telescope and the old Hubble to discover a gaping void in the center of a galaxy in the Abell 402 cluster—as if an invisible tugboat had pulled billions of stars out of there. The missing mass equals two billion suns: it's not a cloud but a real lack of stars. Near this hole, two powerful sources were found—candidates for supermassive black holes. They orbit at a distance of thousands of light-years and together weigh 60 billion suns—the heaviest pair ever observed. For comparison, the central black hole of the Milky Way is 15,000 times lighter.
The combined gravity of this pair acts like a giant space tugboat: the holes push and eject stars, leaving a swept-clean zone at the center of the galaxy. If the second black hole is confirmed, the system will become the most powerful source of ripples in space-time, which future sensitive detectors could pick up. The first ideas about such waves were developed by Kip Thorne. Remarkably, this pair ejected more stars than shine in some dwarf galaxies: it can accelerate a star to a speed high enough to hurl it forever into intergalactic space.
🎯 The discovered pair of black holes is heavier than all the stars in some small galaxies combined.
🎬 If in 'Interstellar' the hero dove into one black hole, here a pair of giants scooped out a starless abyss around themselves.