Episode 387 - Black holes dancing, colliding and third wheeling

Scientists have discovered the closet black hole to Earth, but relax it's 1000 Light years away. Ever felt like a third wheel, just be thankful it's not a black hole. A binary star system that can be seen with the naked eye with a lurking black hole. Super massive  black holes are hard to get your head around but can unleash tremendous energy. When two super massive black holes dance around each other, the fireworks are spectacular. Predicting when two black holes will graze past each other helps us refine our understanding of the universe.

1. Th. Rivinius, D. Baade, P. Hadrava, M. Heida and R. Klement. A naked-eye triple system with a nonaccreting black hole in the inner binary. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2020 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038020
2. Seppo Laine, Lankeswar Dey, Mauri Valtonen, A. Gopakumar, Stanislaw Zola, S. Komossa, Mark Kidger, Pauli Pihajoki, José L. Gómez, Daniel Caton, Stefano Ciprini, Marek Drozdz, Kosmas Gazeas, Vira Godunova, Shirin Haque, Felix Hildebrandt, Rene Hudec, Helen Jermak, Albert K. H. Kong, Harry Lehto, Alexios Liakos, Katsura Matsumoto, Markus Mugrauer, Tapio Pursimo, Daniel E. Reichart, Andrii Simon, Michal Siwak, Eda Sonbas. Spitzer Observations of the Predicted Eddington Flare from Blazar OJ 287. The Astrophysical Journal, 2020; 894 (1): L1 DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab79a4