NASA Just Spotted a Wandering Black Hole Devouring a Star
5 hours ago
- A wandering supermassive black hole 750 million light-years away is consuming stars, detected through a tidal disruption event.
- This is only the second orphan black hole spotted, located in Cetus, in galaxy WISEA J014656.04-152214.7.
- The destruction heats star fragments to 54,000°F, creating a bright signature observed by Swift Observatory.
- The black hole is about 1.2 billion times the mass of the sun; the consumed star radiated with the strength of 10 billion suns.
- It strayed 11-12 times farther from its galaxy center than the first orphan black hole.
- Orphan black holes may be set loose during galaxy mergers.
- The discovery validates a new technique to find wandering black holes.