A combination of three Maunakea observatories (Keck, Subaru and Gemini) has been used by a team of Astronomers to discover several pairs of merging galaxies. In our dynamically evolving Universe, galaxies experience collisions and mergers with other neighbouring galaxies. These rare events can be dramatic, causing the birth of new stars and the rapid feeding of the supermassive black holes that reside at the centre of each galaxy. As material swirls around these black holes (which may be billions of times more massive than our Sun), it is heated to high temperatures, and becomes incredibly bright. So bright, in fact, that it can outshine its host galaxy, making a merging pair of galaxies with active black holes extraordinarily hard to detect. However, the combination of observations from Keck, Gemini, and Subaru, allowed the researchers to overcome these difficulties by pinpointing objects where gas was moving at thousands of kilometers per second, and thus must be under the influence of a supermassive black hole. These cosmic dances between two merging galaxies provide unprecedented insight into how galaxies form and grow.
Read more, in the Subaru Telescope and W. M. Keck Observatory press releases.