Added 1 new A* page:NASA posted a new article about two merging quasar pairs—active supermassive black holes at the centers of colliding distant galaxies; they also mention A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of *our* galaxy:
"The Hubble images show that quasars within each pair are only about 10,000 light-years apart. By comparison, our Sun is 26,000 light-years from the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy."
These quasars are about 10 billion light years away, which means we're seeing them 10 billion years ago—which is when quasars were most abundant, according to the article—so mergers were more frequent:
"We estimate that in the distant universe, for every 1,000 quasars, there is one double quasar."
Gotta watch out for the big glossy illustration at the top of the article, though, showing a galactic merger with two quasars: that's simply an artist's concept of what such an event *might* look like. Hubble's actual photos of the quasar pairs are lower down in the article, with the quasars simply looking like bright blobs close to each other.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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