The Universe is in constant motion, even cosmic objects that are incomprehensibly large for us can collide. The “loser” of a “fight” between three black holes” ended up being rejected from its galaxy and today wanders through space.
- The Hubble Telescope caught this huge supermassive black hole traveling followed by a huge chain of young stars, which form an impressive tail on the star.
- The NASA illustration simulates what this interaction might look like;
- The supermassive black hole has a mass equivalent to 20 billion suns;
- It travels so fast that it would cover the distance between the Earth and the Moon in 14 seconds.
Black hole generating stars
During its long, fast journey, the black hole accumulates gas in front of it. This motion causes the regions it passes through to collapse, forming new stars.
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The curious thing is that, normally, such an object would swallow these stars. However, he moves so fast that he doesn’t have time to “snap” and they end up forming a line behind him.
We think we’re seeing a contrail behind the black hole, where the gas cools and is able to form stars. So we’re looking at star formation following the black hole.
Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University, lead author of the study
- The researchers believe that the hole was “kicked out” of its own galaxy;
- Collisions with other black holes would have occurred there after two galaxies merged 50 million years ago;
- As these supermassive black holes circled each other, another galaxy entered the mix.
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