Astronomers have detected a runaway supermassive black hole, creating waves of shocking gas and young stars behind it. Researchers believe the black hole is roughly 20 million times the mass of the Sun.
The black hole in question appears to have been ejected from its home galaxy and provides the first evidence of this phenomenon, according to the research, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters According to the siteMETRO
And researchers discovered it “accidentally” when they spotted the fleeing black hole as a bright streak of light while observing the dwarf galaxy. RCP 28 on the Hubble Space Telescope.
Follow-up observations showed the line to be more than 200,000 light-years long – roughly twice the width of the Milky Way..
The line is thought to consist of compressed gas actively forming stars and points to the galactic center, where a supermassive black hole resides.
Researchers believe the black hole associated with the line is approximately 20 million times the mass of the Sun and is accelerating away from its home galaxy at 3.5 million miles per hour (5.6 million km/h). That’s roughly 4,500 times the speed of sound.
The study’s lead author, Peter van Dokkum, a professor of physics and astronomy at Yale University, told Lt Live Science: “We have found a thin line in the Hubble image pointing to the center of the galaxy and “using a telescope Keck In Hawaii, we found that the line and the galaxy are connected, and from detailed analysis of the feature, we concluded that we are witnessing a supermassive black hole that has been ejected from the galaxy, leaving behind a trail of gas and newly formed stars “.
Most large galaxies host active supermassive black holes at their centers that often shoot jets of material at high speeds. These appear as streaks of light called “astrophysical jets”.“.
To make sure the line they spotted wasn’t an astrophysical jet, the team investigated it and found that, unlike astrophysical jets that weaken the farther from the source of their emission, this line became stronger as it got farther away from its source, the point of origin..
The team concluded that the most appropriate explanation for the lines is the presence of a supermassive black hole penetrating the gas surrounding its galaxy.
Van Dokkum said: “If confirmed, it would be the first time we have clear evidence that supermassive black holes can escape galaxies.”“.
Researchers believe that the black hole could have been ejected by a galactic merger, as a third black hole knocked this one out. Perhaps the runaway black hole was part of a rare pair of supermassive black holes that were disrupted..
Further observations using other, more sophisticated and sophisticated telescopes are needed to confirm that it is indeed a black hole at the tip of the fuzzy line while observing the dwarf galaxy. RCP 28 On the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers detected the fleeing black hole as a bright streak of light.