Close-up view of the nearest pair of supermassive black holes

Eso_eso2117b_1024

eso_eso2117b November 30th, 2021

Credit: ESO/Voggel et al.

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.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2117b/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 7727
Subject - Local Universe
Star > Evolutionary Stage > Black Hole
Eso_eso2117b_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 23h 39m 53.8s
DEC = -12° 17’ 32.5”
Orientation
North is 2.5° CW
Field of View
0.1 x 0.1 arcminutes
Constellation
Aquarius

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red VLT (MUSE) Optical (i) 770.0 nm
Green VLT (MUSE) Optical (r) 625.0 nm
Blue VLT (MUSE) Optical (g) 480.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Eso_eso2117b_1280
×
ID
eso2117b
Subject Category
C.3.1.10  
Subject Name
NGC 7727
Credits
ESO/Voggel et al.
Release Date
2021-11-30T14:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2117b/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope
Instrument
MUSE, MUSE, MUSE
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
i, r, g
Central Wavelength
770, 625, 480
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
354.974015144, -12.292369909
Reference Dimension
929.0, 924.0
Reference Pixel
464.5, 462.0
Scale
-2.43104012225e-06, 2.43104012225e-06
Rotation
-2.54000000000002
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
https://www.eso.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
None
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
eso2117b
Metadata Date
2021-11-11T15:44:44+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

×

There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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