Hubble spots runaway black hole leaving behind a trail of new stars

Astronomers assume they’ve found a black hole some 20 million occasions the mass of the Solar rushing away from the core of a distant galaxy. And because the supermassive black hole barrels by intergalactic space, it’s compressing the scant fuel and dust accessible on the market, forsaking a skinny line of newly fashioned stars that is some 200,000 light-years lengthy.

“We predict we’re seeing a wake behind the black hole the place the fuel cools and is ready to kind stars,” mentioned Pieter van Dokkum of Yale College, who first recognized the star path, in a NASA release. “What we’re seeing is the aftermath. Just like the wake behind a ship, we’re seeing the wake behind the black hole.”

Regardless of being comparatively skinny, the black hole’s stellar wake is filled with loads of sizzling blue stars, making it almost half as vibrant because the father or mother galaxy it traces again to. Based mostly on the accessible proof, the researchers assume this black hole was probably ejected throughout a posh dance between three supermassive black holes that have been concerned in a pair of galaxy mergers. If confirmed, this may be the primary observational proof exhibiting that supermassive black holes could be ejected from their father or mother galaxies.

A paper detailing the candidate runaway black hole and its stellar wake was revealed April 6 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Not so invisible in spite of everything

Though black holes themselves don’t emit gentle, they typically depart behind seen traces of their existence. For example, many black holes are surrounded by dense disks of swirling, superheated gas and dust. Such accretion disks do emit copious gentle, making a black hole’s presence clearly recognized.