NASA Telescope Captures New Image of a Tangled Galaxy with Two Black Holes

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular new image of NGC 6240, a galaxy that's not as neatly shaped as others. Researchers have taken a closer look at this galaxy and found that its pink center is absolutely tangled.

NGC 6240 is located about 400 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus. This galaxy has an elongated shape with branching wisps, loops and tails.

So why is this galaxy so bizarrely shaped in comparison to others? It actually didn't start out looking like this. Its distorted appearance is the result of a galactic merger that occurred when two galaxies drifted too close to one another. The merger sparked bursts of new star formation and triggered many hot young stars to explode as supernovae. A new supernova, which is not visible in this image, was discovered in this galaxy in 2013, in fact.

What's important to note is that the galaxy looks so strange due to the immense forces acted upon it. When the galaxies merged, they created a string of actions that helped shape the galaxy as it appears today.

At the center of the galaxy are two supermassive black holes rather than one. The black holes, which once belonged to separate galaxies, are currently only about 3,000 light-years apart. This is incredibly close considering that the galaxy itself is only about 300,000 light-years. This means that the black holes will eventually merge themselves and form a single immense black hole.

The new image reveals a bit more about this galaxy and shows exactly what occurs after a galaxy merger. This may tell scientists a bit more about galaxy evolution, and may help with future findings.

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