In an unprecedented discovery, astronomers have discovered a pair of powerful black holes from the ‘cosmic dawn’ Sciences

Think of a supermassive black hole 100 million times The mass of our sun – A gigantic thing in itself.

Now go further and imagine two such objects, both shining brightly inside Two galaxies Which will soon become single and intense Cosmic soup.

These extremely powerful objects existed when our universe was “just” 900 million yearsThis is according to a study recently published in the scientific journal “The Astrophysical Journal Letters.”

Discovery is Unpublished It is revealed that these Quasarsas these luminous galactic nuclei are also called, were merging during the period of the universe known as… “Cosmic dawn” or “The era of reionization”, When stars, galaxies, and other celestial bodies first formed.

The term may seem complicated, but quasar comes from the abbreviation which means… “Radio source close to the star” (from English, semi-excellent radio source).

This name was coined in the 1960s when quasars were first discovered. But today, astronomers already know that they are weak emitters of radio waves.

But the nickname stuck and studying objects of this type is crucial for us to understand the process of formation of celestial bodies in these primordial and near-Big Bang galactic mergers – almost today’s universe. 13.7 billion years.

The strange thing about all this is that so far about 300 quasars have been discovered “The era of reionization”, But none of them were found in pairs.

“The statistical properties of quasars in the era of reionization provide us with a lot of information, such as the progression and origin of reionization.” [quando as primeiras estrelas emitiram radiação suficiente para ionizar novamente o hidrogênio neutro que predominava no Universo]”The formation of supermassive black holes during the ‘cosmic dawn’ and the early evolution of the host galaxies of these quasars,” said Yoshiki Matsuoka, an astronomer at Ehime University in Japan and lead author of the paper describing the findings.

“Pure coincidence”

However, discovering merging quasars was a long process. Since these objects are located very far back in the universe, researchers had to extensively survey large areas of the sky to identify sources that could be potential candidates. The discovery came by chance.

“I noticed two similar, intense red fountains, one next to the other. It was purely accidental,” Matsuoka added.

Then, to confirm the nature of these objects, astronomers studied their existence Spectroscopic analysis, Something essential to understanding the elements that make up these celestial bodies.

From this, they were able to conclude that these quasars were too faint to be detected in the near-infrared, and that part of the light detected in the optical range did not come from quasars, but from the ongoing formation of stars in their galaxies. Host galaxies.

Since the gas bridge between quasars has been identified, It and its host galaxies can only be a large-scale merger.

video: “Phoenix”: The discovery of the planet that interests scientists