According to the models of how galaxies evolve, astronomers expected to observe many galactic systems with two supermassive black holes in their centre.

However, this has been difficult to confirm, and astronomers are somewhat confused trying to understand what is “hiding” these pairs of black holes.

One of the most striking examples is located in the Abell 400 galaxy cluster, and are two supermassive black holes orbiting each other in the centre of collision of two galaxies.

Two pairs of jets of gas are being spewed out, one by each of these galaxies’ active nuclei, and are visible in the radio band of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The two colliding galaxies move in relation to the extremely hot and dense environment between the galaxies of the Abell 400 cluster (visible in blue in the image). As the galaxies move, the jets become twisted, as is seen in the image.

Galaxies chosen by Hugo Messias.