Black holes are generally lonely, and from time to time you can see double black holes orbiting each other, but have you ever seen three black holes forming a "three-body system"?So far, humans have only discovered three "triple black hole systems", and the newly discovered "J1218/1219+1035" is the most special. This is the first triple radio AGN system confirmed by humans.
so-calledAGN (Active Galactic Nuclei), means that when a black hole swallows the surrounding gas and dust, it will become extremely active and emit strong radio radiation. It is like a "signal tower" in the universe and can be clearly seen tens of billions of light-years away.
The three black holes of J1218/1219+1035 are all AGN, which shows how active they are!
When scientists used VLA (Very Large Array) and VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) telescopes to observe, they foundThere is a supermassive black hole hidden in the center of the three nearby galaxies, and each one is devouring surrounding matter on a large scale. The overall radio radiation is clear and compact, which is a typical synchrotron radiation characteristic.
Why is this? Because the three of them are merging, they will become a super super black hole in the future.
It is this mutual pulling force that even caused the three galaxies to be torn out of shape.
