New research led by Newcastle University and published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has revealed that supermassive black holes obscured by dust are more likely to grow and release tremendous amounts of energy when they are inside galaxies that are expected to collide with a neighboring galaxy.

Supermassive black holes, with masses millions or even billions of times that of our Sun, are found at the heart of galaxies, including our Milky Way. These black holes increase their size by consuming gas that spirals into them. However, the factors that push the gas close enough to the black holes for consumption remain a subject of ongoing inquiry.

One possibility is that when galaxies are close enough together, they are likely to be gravitationally pulled towards each other and ‘merge’ into one larger galaxy.

In the final stages of its journey into a black hole, gas lights up and produces a huge amount of energy. This energy is typically detected using visible light or X-rays. However, the astronomers conducting this study were only able to detect the growing black holes using infrared light. The team made use of data from many different telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope.