Wednesday, 12 April 2023 – 06:02 WIB
LIVE Techno – Astronomers have spotted an out-of-control supermassive black hole that appears to be ejected from its home galaxy and racing through space with a tail of stars in its footsteps.
According to the team’s research published April 6 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the discovery offers the first observational evidence that supermassive black holes can be ejected from their home galaxies to explore interstellar space.
Researchers found the escaping black hole as a bright streak of light when they used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the dwarf galaxy RCP 28, located about 7.5 billion light years from Earth.
Further observations showed that the line is more than 200,000 light years across – roughly twice the width of the Milky Way – and is thought to be made of compressed gas that is actively forming stars.
The gas following the black hole is estimated to be 20 million times the mass of the Sun and is hurtling away from its home galaxy at 3.5 million mph (5.6 million km/h), or roughly 4,500 times the speed of sound.
This is fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in about 14 minutes, according to a NASA (Aviation and Space Administration) statement.
