Humanity is waiting for an incredible show. In a galaxy in the constellation Boötes, two black holes will merge.

Such an event will cause a flash in the sky, as well as the arrival of a powerful gravitational wave. A gravitational wave is a distortion of space-time. That is, time begins to slow down or go backwards, space “pulsates”. How it looks in reality, no one knows, because this has never happened before. Gravitational waves come to Earth from time to time, but they are very weak.

The galaxy in question is 1 billion light-years away. Very far away, and this is good: the phenomena will not be catastrophic. Bootes does not enter the latitudes of central Russia, so we will see anyway.

At the center of this distant galaxy are two black holes, one revolving around the other. Their total mass is about 800 million times greater than the Sun, while by cosmic standards they are tiny, smaller than the size of the Earth’s orbit. They get closer, then they move away. When they get close, there is a small flash.

Astronomers have been watching these flares for a long time, and they have noticed that flares are becoming more frequent. A few years ago, such an outbreak happened once a year. Now it’s once a month. This means that the smaller black hole is rapidly approaching the larger one. As calculated by a group of astronomers, before a complete merger – a maximum of a thousand days. That is, it will happen either this year or next year.

Earthlings will see a flash in the sky, hardly very bright (normally this galaxy is not visible to the naked eye). One can only speculate about the further consequences. The merger of black holes is the most powerful catastrophe that can only be expected in our universe.

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