Oktay74tn
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OJ 287 Galaxy With Supermassive Black Hole Binary
Oktay Yürük aka Oktay74tn, science and tech content
https://imgur.com/user/Oktay74tn
OJ 287 is a BL Lacertae type galaxy 5 billion light-years from Earth. BL Lacertae objects have an active galactic nucleus with rapid and large-amplitude flux variability and significant optical polarization. This image, taken with a radio telescope, shows the ribbon-like, twisted plasma jet spinning off the galaxy’s center. Some regions of the jet have a brightness temperature of 13 trillion Kelvin.
This animation shows the two supermassive black holes in the galaxy OJ 287. The smaller black hole orbits the larger one every 12 years. Twice per orbit, the small black hole collides with the gas and dust disk of the large black hole which causes high-luminosity flares. OJ 287 has been observed since the 1880s. There is a 60-year cycle of brightness fluctuations.
This picture shows the evolution of the jet over a period of three years. The reorientation could be driven by precession, magnetohydrodynamic instabilities, or interactions with the surrounding medium.
The orbit of the secondary black hole has a high eccentricity of 0.65. Its mass is estimated at 100 million solar masses (23x the mass of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole of the Milky Way). The primary black hole could have a mass of up to 17 billion solar masses.
The diameter of the central black hole is 720 AU (Astronomical Unit, 1 AU is the Earth-Sun distance of 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles). That is nine times the size of Pluto's orbit. The secondary black hole has a size of 6 AU.
The black hole binary loses angular momentum due to the emission of gravitational waves. The two supermassive black holes will merge within 10,000 years.
OJ 287 is a candidate for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna LISA, a space mission to measure gravitational waves. Three spacecrafts will be arranged in a triangle with each side 2.5 million kilometers long. The launch of the LISA mission is planned for 2035.
Revealing a ribbon-like jet in OJ 287 with RadioAstron
E. Traianou, J. L. Gomez, I. Cho, A. Chael, A. Fuentes, et al.
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa54929-25/aa54929-25.html
OJ 287: New Image from the Heart of a Mysterious Galaxy
https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/en/newsroom/oj-287-new-image-from-the-heart-of-a-mysterious-galaxy
OJ 287 Galaxy Likely Harbors Supermassive Black Hole Binary at Its Center, Observations Suggest
https://www.sci.news/astronomy/oj-287-jet-14106.html
Wikipedia articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OJ_287
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_Lacertae_object
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna
German Wikipedia article
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/OJ_287
Check out https://imgur.com/user/Oktay74tn for many more astronomy and technology videos.
HollerinAtTheVoid
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJleXg1bW9pZ2tmMjA0aHpiOTB1bzk0MnhsbXF3dGNodWtnY2tmMnc0eCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/mmalRTnMasEhCIpvQB/200w.mp4
sintares3000
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJlZGs0bjYyd3FmcTZwZW9xcWFjdHR1NnQyeHpqM2loNGRwNXc4dm04YiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/ejJv2I6hv1Zt2P3659/200w.mp4
static4000
So that's where orange juice comes from!? Neat 📸
GuitarsAndCodeAndRage
x287 https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJlazc1Y3FzZnN4enoxanpzZXZwZ3hmejdrNm1wenBiZ3pkbnRhbDRueiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/Ymwj6Ea3B3e1O/200w.mp4
Wardonk3y
If youre interested in this kind of stuff try looking up the final parsec problem.
lifeActionFilm
The merge happened billions of years ago!
NonFungibleUsername
Came here to say this. That’s probably not a binary black hole anymore.
TheJackKetch
Don’t all galaxies have supermassive black holes?
eggmuffin
I think the consensus is "probably (to a certain definition of 'galaxy'), but we haven't looked everywhere yet."
guardian19d
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1dDA4ZjRjdTBkM2JzNG1hdDJteTdrYXo0aDBweHBxdGVnYjduaml6cCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/KMKb1vyvyZRVxaYb8l/200w.webp
florpglorp
If this blurry image is all we have now, how did they even observe this thing in the 1880s?
partimevillain
Look up ton-618. Space is scary 😨
flopydisk
Thank You @op for uploading this stuff, each time I learn something new and incredible.
Oktay74tn
You are welcome :)
FortifiedWhine
I like to hear Werner Herzog narrating stuff.
Oktay74tn
I've been thinking a lot over the last few weeks. I know it's a long way to go but I will do my best to make my astronomy channel the best on the internet.
cuddlydingo
How did they observe this in the 1880’s? Were telescopes powerful enough back then?
Oktay74tn
This event has a very high brightness. That's why they were able to observe it in the 1880's.
friendsofsandwiches
I'm glad someone out there is spending money on space and science.
cheezmuncha
Humanity is only just barely scratching the surface of knowledge here. Imagine if scientists were paid like rockstars… massive momentum in the advancement of humankind.
Jonmbram
We aren’t getting through the great filter at this rate.
UncleRat
13 trillion degrees Kelvin. My limited physics can't deal with that number.
c991257
It'll burn your fingers if you touch something at that temperature. Hope that explains it better.
Oktay74tn
Yes, that is beyond my imagination, too.
LeftRightThere
How hard of a slap would it take to achieve that temperature?
ItWasNotAcceptableIfNotToLiveForTheSakeOfPleasurableThings
Hard enough to cook a chicken.
ItHappenedInThe20thCentury
Let's add to that a single object that's NINE TIMES the size of Pluto's orbit. I just can't.
It would take 4 full days (96 hours), to cross that distance *at the speed of light*. And it's not just space, it's a "thing" that takes that much space. Can I even call that a "thing", instead of a VERY dense part of space? I'm lost, man.
wizard07ksu9000
So technically ..... 😉
Black holes don't have size. They are singularities, which means a single infinitely dense point. So dense it literally breaks the space time continum there. The "size" is the event horizon, the point of no return.
Imagine a skunk walking through a crowded mall. People would be moving away from the skunk. Despite its small size, people act like it is 4x larger than them. Except instead of being pulled towards it people are repelled from the skunk. So its a white hole.
ItHappenedInThe20thCentury
I love how this analogy both works super well and doesn't work at all. I don't want to say it stinks, but it's very difficult not to.
ilavalamp
Voyager 1 is the furthest manmade object from Earth and it is expected to be 1 light day away from us by November of next year. It will have taken V1 over 49 years to reach that distance and that is only half of the black hole's radius. V1 is currently travelling at ~17km/s (For our American friends: that's about 186 American football fields per second, or just over the total rushing yards for Emmitt Smith's entire NFL career every second).
derrymerbles
lol that Americanized math just kept getting better
billyPiDriver
oh yay. I get to share this one:
https://youtu.be/aIg8gAbqqZc
slight bit of introductory text, but shows relative size and mass of ever larger black holes
ItHappenedInThe20thCentury
ohboy. Before clicking I already know it's one of those that will give me cosmic scale anxiety. Let's go!
Yakeshinu
I'd say go ahead and call it a thing, if just for ease of communication.
Pedantically, it's the event horizon, and the actual "thing" is inside it, but since we can neither see nor measure anything past the event horizon itself (and really don't know what is actually going on in there), it's really pretty much the same either way, IMHO. ;)
ItHappenedInThe20thCentury
"That thing over here."
"Where?"
"Right over there, behind the event horizon."
"Can't see it. You sure it's a thing there?"
"Yeah, there's all these effects and consequences, see?"
ItHappenedInThe20thCentury
"So what goes on in there?"
"No idea."
"Like, gimme a ballpark."
"Well, time and space kinda change places."
"Places, you say."
ItHappenedInThe20thCentury
"I makes sense, trust me."
"Ok, sure."