NGC 7727 is a peculiar galaxy in the constellation Aquarius. It harbors two galactic nuclei, each containing a supermassive black hole, separated 1,600 light years apart.

This object is located at a distance of 23.3 megaparsecs (76 million light years) from the Milky Way and has a peculiar aspect, with several plumes and streams of irregular shape that explains its inclusion on Halton C. Arp‘s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies with the number 222, being classified as a “Galaxy with amorphous spiral arms”. Gemini South, one half of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, captures the billion-year-old aftermath of a double spiral galaxy collision. At the heart of this chaotic interaction, entwined and caught in the midst of the chaos, is a pair of supermassive black holes — the closest such pair ever recorded from Earth.