Something spectacular is happening. Astronomers think that they have discovered a pair of black holes that are beginning to merge into one huge singularity. But what does this mean?
The two black holes, dubbed PG 1302-102, are 3.5 billion light years from Earth, and are only a handful of binary black holes that we know about. These two in particular, though, are the closest pair that we've seen. The distance between the two is roughly the width of our Solar System, and in a little under one million years, they are going to collide. Their collision may result in an explosion that equals 100 million supernovae.
That's a really big explosion.
Now it should be noted that it hasn't been 100% confirmed that these two will run into each other, but the data that's being collected at Columbia University in New York suggests that they are. One of the two is consuming the other one at a faster rate, and is traveling around 7% the speed of light. This speed is causing it to emit light and be extremely bright. The data that the scientists have published say that if this black hole were in the Oort Cloud (the area that surrounds the planets in our Solar System) it would orbit the Sun in five years. To give you a comparison, Pluto orbits the Sun every 248 years.
Why am I telling you all of this? No reason. I just thought that this is an incredible event that's taking place in our Universe, and wanted to share. Just be glad it's as far away from us as it is. I can only imagine what it'll do to surrounding systems.
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