The central regions of many glittering galaxies, our own Milky Way included, harbor cores of impenetrable darkness—black holes with masses equivalent to millions, or even billions, of suns. What is more, these supermassive black holes and their host galaxies appear to develop together, or "co-evolve." Theory predicts that as galaxies collide and merge, growing ever more massive, so too do their dark hearts. An artist's conception of a black hole binary in a heart of a quasar, with the data showing the periodic variability superposed. Credit: Santiago Lombeyda/Caltech Center for Data-Driven Discovery Black holes by themselves are impossible to see, but their gravity can pull in surrounding gas to form a swirling band of material called an accretion disk.
Read more about Unusual Light Signal Yields Clues About Elusive Black Hole Merger
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