Black Holes and Colliding Galaxies
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010Question: Since galaxies have black holes and two such galaxies were colliding, would those two galaxies in effect form one large black hole?
Answer: You pose an interesting question from a few different physics standpoints. The Hubble Constant tells us that all galaxies are drawing back from each other. At the same time we have discovered that in the local sense this isn’t always the case. For example, the Milky Way Galaxy will collide with our neighbor the Andromeda Galaxy in 5 billion years. There are a number of potentially colliding galaxies that are observable from Earth which are in fact on a collision course with one another. Today’s extremely powerful telescopes detect vast plumes or jets spewing out from the polar axis of black holes in the heart of galaxies and quasi-stellar objects. We also know that after a large star crashes in upon itself which then creates a supernova which a small black hole can form in its center. Supernovae provide us with so much information associated with colliding galaxies and their black holes that there is an entire area of astronomy devoted to the study of supernovae. That’s why we at Windowpane Observatory maintain the name a star program, which allows science buffs an opportunity to creatively contribute to astronomy exploration into supernovae, as well as the search for earth-bound asteroids.