Close-up view of the nearest pair of supermassive black holes
Close-up view of the two bright galactic nuclei, each housing a supermassive black hole, in NGC 7727, a galaxy located 89 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. Each nucleus consists of a dense group of stars with a supermassive black hole at its centre. The two black holes are on a collision course and form the closest pair of supermassive black holes found to date. It is also the pair with the smallest separation between two supermassive black holes — observed just 1600 light-years apart in the sky.
The image was taken with the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.
Credit:ESO/Voggel et al.
About the Image
| Id: | eso2117b |
| Type: | Observation |
| Release date: | 30 November 2021, 14:00 |
| Related releases: | eso2211, eso2117 |
| Size: | 929 x 924 px |
About the Object
| Name: | NGC 7727 |
| Type: | Local Universe : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Black Hole |
| Distance: | 90 million light years |
| Constellation: | Aquarius |
| Category: | Quasars and Black Holes |
Wallpapers
Coordinates
| Position (RA): | 23 39 53.76 |
| Position (Dec): | -12° 17' 32.53" |
| Field of view: | 0.14 x 0.13 arcminutes |
| Orientation: | North is 2.5° right of vertical |
View in WorldWide Telescope:
Colours & filters
| Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
|---|---|---|
| Optical g | 480 nm | Very Large Telescope MUSE |
| Optical r | 625 nm | Very Large Telescope MUSE |
| Optical i | 770 nm | Very Large Telescope MUSE |