NASA announces an unprecedented discovery: a “supermassive” black hole, the result of the collision of three galaxies

NASA just announced the observation by the Hubble Space Telescope of a traveling black hole. With a mass 20 million times that of the Sun, it collides with clouds of gas on its way. The gas then turns into a trail of star formation, 200,000 light-years across.

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“What we see in space is like the rise of a ship at sea. It’s a wake behind the black hole where gas cools and can form stars,” explains Peter van Dokkum, of Yale University. This poses no danger to Earth, because the phenomenon is far away, and already dates back to half the age of the universe.

Two galaxies have merged

This serendipitous discovery is unprecedented. It opens a new chapter in astronomical observations. According to one explanation, about fifty million years ago, two galaxies merged, causing supermassive black holes to orbit each other at their centers. Then a third galaxy collides, creating an unstable, chaotic three-body system. One of the black holes was ejected at great speed.

Thus, the one discovered by Hubble can travel from Earth to the Moon in just fourteen minutes. Astrophysicists envision such wandering black holes in potentially large numbers. The Nancy-Grace-Roman telescope, due to be launched within the next decade, will have the mission of determining these star trails, the signatures of the supersonic passage of black holes.