Huge cosmic bursts are coming from two black holes circling each other in a distant galaxy. In this case, the flare came from a binary system consisting of two black holes trapped in a rapid dance. A cosmic burst 100 times brighter than our galaxyThe recorded burst, which astronomers observed in February 2022, occurred when the smaller black hole crashed into a disk of gas surrounding the larger black hole, the study's scientists said. Up to this point, its presence was only predicted through observations of its gravitational influence on the larger black hole. An illustration of the binary black hole system, OJ 287, showing the massive black hole surrounded by an accretion disk.

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Persons: —, Mauri Valtonen, Valtonen, Swift, Cruz, they've Organizations: Service, Royal Astronomical Society, ESO, ESA, Hubble, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, NASA, OJ, University of Turku Locations: OJ287