Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Originally published in Science Express on 17 May 2007
Science 29 June 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5833, pp. 1877 - 1880
DOI: 10.1126/science.1136205
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Locating the Two Black Holes in NGC 6240

Claire E. Max,1,2* Gabriela Canalizo,1,3 Willem H. de Vries1,4

Mergers play an important role in galaxy evolution and are key to understanding the correlation between central–black hole mass and host-galaxy properties. We used the new technology of adaptive optics at the Keck II telescope to observe NGC 6240, a merger between two disk galaxies. Our high-resolution near-infrared images, combined with radio and x-ray positions, revealed the location and environment of two central supermassive black holes. Each is at the center of a rotating stellar disk, surrounded by a cloud of young star clusters. The brightest of these young clusters lie in the plane of each disk, but surprisingly are seen only on the disks' receding side.

1 Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, CA 94550, USA.
2 Center for Adaptive Optics, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
3 Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and Department of Physics, University of California, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
4 Department of Physics, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: max{at}ucolick.org

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)