The Ejected Black Hole
Posted by on Saturday, February 25, 2023 Under: Astronomy
There is another interesting news story from the astronomy community, and this time it involves a rogue black hole.
What the astronomers believe that they have observed is actually a supermassive black hole, of the type believed to be at the center of most galaxies including our own, except this one appears to have been ejected from its host galaxy and is now travelling through space on its own.
Actually to be more precise, it isn't on its own. The other interesting discovery from this observation is that it seems to have taken a large part of its galaxy with it, and that trail of gas and debris is now producing new stars in the wake of the black hole. The overall effect is a long string of bright stars, forming a glowing arrow that points back to the center of the galaxy that the black hole was originally ejected from.
If these preliminary results are confirmed, it would be the first observational evidence that black holes can be ejected from their home galaxies into interstellar space.
The team of astronomers that discovered the runaway black hole were using observations from the Hubble Space Telescope of the dwarf galaxy RCP 28, located roughly 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. What they saw was a bright streak of light in those images, prompting them to conduct follow-up observations of the region using the ground based Keck telescope in Hawaii.
By adding in the data from the Keck telescope, they were able to determine that the streak measures more than 200,000 light-years across — or approximately twice the width of the Milky Way — and it's most likely made of compressed gas that has started forming new stars. The researchers tracked that streak of gas back to the galaxy's center, where it is believed that the supermassive black hole was originally located.
The researchers estimate that the black hole is an estimated 20 million times more massive than the sun and is currently moving at roughly five and a half million kilometers per hour.
One can only imagine what it would be like to be an alien life form living on one of these bizarre new stars chasing a rogue black hole.
What the astronomers believe that they have observed is actually a supermassive black hole, of the type believed to be at the center of most galaxies including our own, except this one appears to have been ejected from its host galaxy and is now travelling through space on its own.
Actually to be more precise, it isn't on its own. The other interesting discovery from this observation is that it seems to have taken a large part of its galaxy with it, and that trail of gas and debris is now producing new stars in the wake of the black hole. The overall effect is a long string of bright stars, forming a glowing arrow that points back to the center of the galaxy that the black hole was originally ejected from.
If these preliminary results are confirmed, it would be the first observational evidence that black holes can be ejected from their home galaxies into interstellar space.
The team of astronomers that discovered the runaway black hole were using observations from the Hubble Space Telescope of the dwarf galaxy RCP 28, located roughly 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. What they saw was a bright streak of light in those images, prompting them to conduct follow-up observations of the region using the ground based Keck telescope in Hawaii.
By adding in the data from the Keck telescope, they were able to determine that the streak measures more than 200,000 light-years across — or approximately twice the width of the Milky Way — and it's most likely made of compressed gas that has started forming new stars. The researchers tracked that streak of gas back to the galaxy's center, where it is believed that the supermassive black hole was originally located.
The researchers estimate that the black hole is an estimated 20 million times more massive than the sun and is currently moving at roughly five and a half million kilometers per hour.
One can only imagine what it would be like to be an alien life form living on one of these bizarre new stars chasing a rogue black hole.
In : Astronomy
I am a theoretical physicist & mathematician, with training in electronics, programming, robotics, and a number of other related fields.
