Flare of light brighter than a trillion suns reveals location of rare double black hole galaxy

Mysterious flares in the sky brighter than a trillion suns are actually the glow from two distant black holes circling one another, astronomers confirmed in new observations that solve a decades-old mystery.

The galaxy was discovered in 1888, and astronomers have suspected for decades that it might be a binary system, with two black holes at its core. The galaxy shows a pattern of emissions that vary on two separate cycles, one 12 years long and the other 55 years long, suggesting two separate types of motion are occurring — one, the orbit of a black hole around another; the other, the slow change in the orientation of that orbit.

"OJ 287 has been recorded in photographs since 1888 and has been intensively followed since 1970," study lead author Mauri Valtonen of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, said in a statement."It turns out that we have simply just had bad luck. Nobody observed OJ 287 exactly on those nights when it did its one-night stunt."

Related content— 'Runaway' black hole the size of 20 million suns caught speeding through space with a trail of newborn stars behind it— First-ever close-up of a supermassive black hole sharpened by AI

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