Discover the closest supermassive black holes to each other?

Four huge cavities, or bubbles, were found in the center of a cluster of galaxies using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Scientists have already seen these X-ray cavities in other galaxy clusters. A pair of cavities is thought to be a byproduct of eruptions from a giant black hole in a large galaxy at the center of a cluster. The eruptions feed jets in opposite directions, which push the gas away, thus creating cavities. However, to produce four cavities each pointing approximately 90 degrees apart, a more complex phenomenon must be involved.

A team of astronomers studying RBS 797 thinks the most likely answer whether the galaxy cluster contains a pair of supermassive black holes, each of which launched jets in perpendicular directions almost simultaneously. Another possible explanation for the four cavities seen in RBS 797 is that there is only one supermassive black hole - with jets that somehow manage to turn in direction fairly quickly. Analysis of Chandra's data shows that the age difference for the east-west and north-south cavities is less than 10 million years.

Photo: Depositphotos Previously, astronomers observed the pair of cavity in the east-west direction in RBS 797, but the pair in the north-south direction was only detected in a new, much longer Chandra observation. The deeper image uses nearly five days of Chandra's observation time, compared to about 14 hours for the original observation. The NSF's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array had already observed evidence of two pairs of jets as radio emission, which align with the cavities.