NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope accidentally captured a ‘runaway’ black hole with supermassive mass (weighing up to 20 million suns) hurtling through space, creating a star trail twice as long than the Milky Way.
Astronomers discovered one for the first time The black hole flies through interstellar space at a speed of 5.6 million km/h (4,500 times the speed of sound). If it were inside the Sun, this black hole could travel from Earth to the Sun in 14 minutes, according to NASA..
Illustration of a black hole creating a star trail.
Illustration of a black hole creating a star trail. (Photo: NASA).
The research team discovered the black hole using the Hubble Space Telescope to observe dwarf galaxy RCP 28, about 7.5 billion light years from Earth. This black hole may have been pushed out of its home galaxy by two other black holes and wandered into the interstellar region.
Research published in the journal Letters from astrophysical journals April 6 said that instead of swallowing stars, the black hole rushed quickly and created a trail of stars in space more than 200,000 light years long. This trail points from the center of a galaxy, where a supermassive black hole is often found.
The researchers think the gas could be shocked and heated by the movement of the black hole, or it could be radiation from an accretion disk around the black hole.
Strange star trail image taken by the Hubble telescope
Image of a strange star trail captured by the Hubble telescope. (Photo: NASA).
“We think we’re seeing post-black hole formation, where the gas cools and stars can form. We’re closely observing star formation after the black hole.”said Pieter van Dokkum, a researcher at Yale University.
“I just scanned the Hubble image and noticed there was a small flaw. I think it was a cosmic ray hitting the camera. But when we removed the cosmic rays, we realized that the trail was still there. This is unlike anything we’ve seen before.he added.
Realizing the strangeness, van Dokkum and his team carried out spectroscopic observations with the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii. He described star trails as “quite amazing, very, very bright and very unusual. »
Researchers will conduct follow-up observations with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory to confirm the black hole explanation.
NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a clearer view of the universe and possibly uncover unprecedented star trails.
Article source: Zing
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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope accidentally captured a “runaway” black hole with a very large mass (weighing up to 20 million Suns) hurtling…
