Hubble Sees Possible Runaway Black Hole Creating a Trail of Stars
4 months ago
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- #Hubble
- #black-hole
- A supermassive black hole, weighing 20 million Suns, is moving so fast it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes.
- It has left a 200,000-light-year-long trail of newborn stars, twice the diameter of the Milky Way.
- The black hole is triggering star formation by plowing into gas, creating a bright 'wake' behind it.
- This phenomenon was accidentally discovered by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
- Researchers believe the black hole was ejected due to a chaotic interaction among three supermassive black holes.
- The binary black holes may have been ejected in the opposite direction, with no active black hole remaining at the galaxy's core.
- Follow-up observations with the James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory are planned to confirm the findings.
- NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope may discover more such rare 'star streaks' in the future.