(SPACE.COM) — For the first time ever, scientists have directly spotted a pair of supermassive black holes orbiting each other, a new study suggests.
This orbital motion — which was noted in observations made over the course of a dozen years — may be the smallest-ever movement detected of an object across the sky, the researchers said.
Supermassive black holes harbor millions to billions of times the mass of Earth’s sun and form the hearts of most, if not all, large galaxies. Much remains uncertain about how these giant black holes grow and influence the universe around them.
