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scienceMay 13, 20264:48pending

Black holes slingshot two billion stars

About this episode

JWST infrared imagery reveals a pair of merging supermassive black holes in Abell 402 BCG, totaling about 60 billion solar masses, hardening and flinging billions of stars from the galaxy's center. We unpack how binary hardening works, the tens-of-millions-of-years scouring phase, and why this is a blueprint for our Milky Way–Andromeda future. The episode also explores how the final merger could light up the galaxy's outskirts with new stars and send gravitational waves rippling through spacetime.


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Black holes slingshot two billion stars

Intellectually Curious

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