Astronomers have sighted a supermassive black hole traveling through space that appears to have been ejected from its host galaxy.
Researchers observing the dwarf galaxy designated RCP 28, roughly 7.5 billion light years away from our solar system, noticed an aberrant streak of light via the Hubble telescope. The “streak” appears to be a collection of stars being dragged out of their home galaxy by the immense gravitational force of a black hole.
The “runaway” black hole is the first of its kind to be observed, and appears to have been ejected from its original galaxy.
“We found a thin line in a Hubble image that is pointing to the center of a galaxy,” Professor Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University, the lead author of the study, said. “From a detailed analysis of the feature, we inferred that we are seeing a very massive black hole that was ejected from the galaxy, leaving a trail of gas and newly formed stars in its wake.”
The “stellar tail” in its wake is 200,000 light-years long, twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy.
The black hole in question is believed to be 20 million times more massive than the Sun, and it is traveling away from RCP 28 at a rate of 3.5 million miles per hour, roughly 4,500 times the speed of sound.
Black holes are celestial bodies where matter has been condensed and concentrated to such an extent that even light cannot escape its gravitational pull — as such, black holes are almost impossible to observe directly, and are usually spotted via their effects on nearby stars and nebulae (clouds of interstellar gas).
Black holes form during the collapse of exceptionally large stars. During the process of a large supernova, the gravitational force at the core of the star becomes so intense that it overpowers the other fundamental forces (the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, electromagnetism), allowing incredible amounts of matter to be compressed into an exceptionally small space: physicists estimate that a black hole with the mass of our sun would measure only 6km in diameter (for comparison, the Sun measures ~1,400,000 km in diameter, making the blackhole 343 quadrillion times as dense).
Physicists don’t understand exactly how supermassive black holes (which range from hundreds of thousands to billions of times more massive than the Sun) formed, but they are believed to play a crucial role in galaxy formation as virtually every observed galaxy has one at its core, which their various stellar systems orbit. It’s unclear how such a massive object could be dislodged from its position in the galactic core.
“The most likely scenario that explains everything we’ve seen is a slingshot, caused by a three-body interaction,” van Dokkum said. “When three similar-mass bodies gravitationally interact, the interaction does not lead to a stable configuration but usually to the formation of a binary and the ejection of the third body. … Ejected supermassive black holes had been predicted for 50 years but none have been unambiguously seen. Most theorists think that there should be many out there.”
Must be the same black hole Don Lemon said swallowed up the Malaysian Flight that was never found? Right Don?
Was 50 Million Light years Across the Mount now could be that much ! the Bible say HELL have enlarge its Mouth for Men Deeds have Worsten and in the Bible it speaks of a soul that got there without the Wedding Gorment and He was speachless the they said bide him hand and foot and Cast Him Into Outer DARKNESS Hell
Not a White Hole in the UNIVERSE. EVEN SPACE IS RACIST. WOW BLAME IT ON TRUMP.
Astronomers have labeled the massive black hole “Meghan Markle”. Swallows everything in it’s path.
This article contradicts itself and “accepted” astrophysics.
Black holes at the core of stellar systems hold the gallaxies swirling around them by gravitational force. That’s a way their existence is detected because they emit no light.
The study, said. “.. we inferred that we are seeing a very massive black hole that was ejected from the [RCP 28 dwarf] galaxy, leaving a trail of gas and newly formed stars in its wake.”
But this black hole had not been discovered until it was beyond RCP 28 dwarf gallaxy and had sucked stars from it leaving a trailing steam “twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy”.
What if the ever-growing mass of this huge celestial black hole had devoured it’s own stellar system. Cloaked in darknes, it could have been cruising the gallaxy, undetected and alone untill it neared RCP 28 and it’s gravitational force caused the star trail.
That’s not a theory the scientists seem to have considered. ” It’s unclear how such a massive object could be dislodged from its position in the galactic core. … The most likely scenario that explains everything we’ve seen is a slingshot, caused by a three-body interaction.” Hmmm? 3 bodies. Where are the other two? Do you have likely candidates for this interaction?