It's never good when dancers collide, but when these two end their "pirouette", I'd get under the table, if I was you!

Black holes may 'warp' space
Collision of huge giants could herald future of our Milky Way galaxy. By Paul Recer / Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- In a looming collision of giants, two supermassive black holes are drifting toward a violent merger and an eruption of energy that will warp the fabric of space. It is all happening in a bright galaxy 400 million light years away.

Images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory have captured for the first time the circling dance of two black holes -- each millions of times the mass of the sun -- as they whirl around each other in a 100-million-year pirouette to merger.

"This is the first time we have ever identified a binary black hole," said Stefanie Komossa, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and the co-author of a study of the double black hole. "This is the aftermath of two galaxies that collided sometime in the past."

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I've previously stated my intention of living forever, but after reading this, maybe I'll plan on not still being on the earthly plane in another 100 million years...

Gosh it even looks dancey!

Hubble Watches Galaxies Engage in Dance of Destruction
From the Space Telescope Science Institute


NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is witnessing a grouping of galaxies engaging in a slow dance of destruction that will last for billions of years....But only four galaxies are on the dance card.

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I think I recognize those steps, but I don't remember what they're called.

...and the choreographer?

Some sort of attitude perhaps and is that object at centre left a cosmic tambourine? If so then I think it's Petipa.

<small>[ 12-13-2002, 20:18: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

The close to death Hubble Telescope has been reprieved and, although the $1bn required is debatable, even in the Astronomy community, the romantic in me is pleased. This image below is as close to a celestial jetee as we are likely to see, methinks.

More exquisite Hubble images here:

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/