Two bright galactic nuclei, Very Large Telescope image


Very Large Telescope (VLT) image showing two bright galactic nuclei, each containing a supermassive black hole. The nuclei are 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 are currently the closest pair of supermassive black holes found to date. Image obtained using the MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.


Size: 3000px × 2984px
Location:
Photo credit: © EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY/Voggel et al./SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -, 7727, aquarius, astronomical, astronomy, astrophysical, astrophysics, black, closest, collision, galactic, galaxy, hole, muse, ngc, nuclei, nucleus, space, supermassive, vlt