20 Million Sun Monster

Today I read something fascinating. Apparently, scientists looking through the Hubble Space Telescope noticed a stream of light far out in space. They believe that the stream represents a supermassive black hole that is hurtling through space extremely fast – so fast that it is producing a stream of stars formed from compressed gas that the black hole is plowing through. This is fascinating to me for three reasons primarily.

The first reason I found this fascinating is that scientists weren’t looking for this and only chanced upon it. According to NASA, a black hole forms when a big star collapses and forms “a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out.” So, black holes can’t be seen. Scientists know they’re there because they can see how the strong gravity affects the stars around the black hole. In this case, scientists noticed a stream of light far out in space just by luck.

Another reason I’m fascinated by this is the size of the black hole. Scientists believe this black hole is huge, with a mass equal to around 20 million of our suns. They currently think that the black hole may have been formed when two large galaxies, each with its own supermassive black hole at its center, collided. Then a third galaxy might have joined the other two to create chaotic twirling until one of the black holes was ejected and began hurtling through space at incredible speeds, forming a trail of new stars rather than gobbling up stars as black holes usually do.

The third reason I am fascinated by this phenomenon is that apparently the galaxies collided about 50 million years ago. It took this long for the light to reach us. I’m not sure if the streaming that scientists can see also took place millions of years ago, or if the black hole is still plowing through space today.

NASA said nothing like this “runaway black hole” has ever been seen before. They will use other telescopes to continue studying the phenomenon. I look forward to reading more about it.