First Image Captures Two Supermassive Black Holes Dancing in OJ287

Astronomers using a radio telescope array that stretches from Earth toward the Moon, including the RadioAstron satellite, captured the first image of two supermassive black holes orbiting each other in the quasar OJ287 (18 billion and 150 million solar masses, 12-year period). The system’s disk-crossing bursts, revealed by high-resolution radio imaging, mark a milestone in black-hole physics and radio astronomy, with future gravitational-wave studies expected from the eLisa mission in the 2030s.