Astronomers have made a stunning discovery using a space telescope, spotting a black hole "rogue" that is approximately 10 million times the mass of the sun, and moving through space at a speed reaching 1000 kilometers per second.
This makes it one of the fastest-moving celestial objects ever observed, according to Space.com.
The black hole, now about 230,000 light-years from the center of its mother galaxy named "Cosmic Owl," trails behind it a massive tail of matter extending 200,000 light-years, where gases accumulate and star formation processes occur. The black hole crosses its galaxy at a speed more than 3000 times the speed of sound on Earth.
Astrophysicist Peter van Dokkum from Yale University pointed out that "the force needed to eject a black hole of this size from its mother galaxy is enormous, and yet, such incidents must have occurred."
This is the first confirmed example of a giant black hole existing far from the center of its galaxy, and scientists have confirmed that it is indeed moving at an incredible speed. Its detection is difficult because the hole itself is invisible, and it can only be discovered through its impact on the surrounding environment, as it generates a shock wave in the gas that helped in its discovery.
There are two main hypotheses to explain why the black hole was expelled from the center of its galaxy:
Merging of two black holes: The resulting collision creates a new hole that is ejected at tremendous speed due to the gravitational radiation from the merger.
Interaction of a triple black hole system: Gravity may eject one of them from the system.
Van Dokkum leans towards the first hypothesis, asserting that this process could explain the effect that the black hole could have on other galaxies, where its shock wave compresses gas in neighboring galaxies, which can lead to the formation of new stars with masses up to 100 million times that of the sun.
It is noted that the two galaxies forming the "Cosmic Owl" are located about 9 billion light-years from Earth, and that the merging of galaxies is a common phenomenon, which may make the expulsion of giant black holes more common than previously thought.
