The big post-election question (which I will be discussing in tonight’s FPM+ Town Hall) is how the Left is going to react to the election. Will it be a repeat of Trump Term 1, worse or better? While…

Don't ever change, climate alarmists. You hypocrites driving around in SUVs while telling others to drive a 0.4-horsepower Prius. With your celebrity spokespeople scolding we plebians as you jet-set…

Everyone is wondering what Kamala’s career trajectory is. But really there’s only thing she’s good at. No, not holding public office, implementing policies or even running for office, but fundraising.…

By Wayne Allyn Root No Republican has ever done what Donald J. Trump has done. Not even close. Simply because no Republican has ever won three presidential elections, just to officially win two! Yes,…

Whistleblowers report that at least 20 homes displaying Trump signs or flags in Lake Placid were skipped by FEMA workers from the end of October into November.MIAMI—Florida’s Attorney General Ashley…

Prominent Fox News hosts Trey Gowdy and Brian Kilmeade are facing intense backlash after sharply criticizing Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) during an on-air segment Thursday morning. Gowdy, a former…

A Senate committee in the US state of Michigan has approved Bill 707, which seeks to impose fines on those who, under the proposed legislation’s scope, are found to be spreading election misinformation,…

There is no limit to news and opinion sources on the web. If one wishes to dive down a rabbit hole, there are plenty of places to take the plunge. One such rabbit hole is Raw Story. Since last Tuesday’s…

One of the big questions coming out of the election — and the GOP's retaking the majority in the Senate — was who would secure the Majority Leader position for the 119th Congress, given that current…

In March 2021, astronomers observed a high-energy burst of light from a distant galaxy. Assigned the name AT 2021hdr, it was thought to be a supernova. However, there were enough interesting features that flagged as potentially interesting by the Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events (ALeRCE). In 2022, another outburst was observed, and over time the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) found a pattern of outbursts every 60–90 days. It clearly wasn’t a supernova, but it was unclear on what it could be until a recent study solved the mystery. One idea was that AT 2021hdr was a tidal disruption event (TDE),] where a star strays too close to a black hole and is ripped apart. This can create periodic bursts as the stellar remnant orbits the black hole, but TDEs don’t tend to have such regular patterns. So the team considered another model, where a massive interstellar cloud passes into the realm of a pair of binary black holes. Simulations show how binary black holes interact with a gas cloud. Credit: F. Goicovic et al. 2016 Computer simulations show that rather than simply ripping apart the cloud, a binary black hole would churn the cloud as it consumes it. This would produce a periodic burst of light as the black holes orbit. The team observed AT 2021hdr using the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and found periodic oscillations of ultraviolet and X-ray light that match the transient bursts observed by ZTF. These observations match the simulations of a binary black hole. Based on the data, the black holes have a combined mass of about 40 million Suns, and they orbit each other every 130 days. If they continue along their paths, the two black holes will merge in about 70,000 years. Without the passing cloud, we would have never noticed them. The team plans to continue their observations of the system to further refine their model. They also plan to study how the black holes interact with their home galaxy. Reference: L. Hernández-García, et al. “AT 2021hdr: A candidate tidal disruption of a gas cloud by a binary super massive black hole system.” Astronomy & Astrophysics 691 (2024) The post Two Supermassive Black Holes on the Verge of a Merger appeared first on Universe Today.