A team of space scientists in the United States has discovered a massive black hole that is moving through space and leaving behind a trail of newborn stars stretching 200,000 light-years. According to the researchers, this gigantic monster, which has a mass 20 million times that of the sun, was probably created by a strange intergalactic mass interaction. The incredible forces at play turn the gas in its path into a trail of new stars, which have been captured by cameras on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Scientists believe that the gas is ejected and heated by the motion of the black hole, allowing stars to form. According to Pieter van Dokkum, an expert at Yale University, the wake is like the wake behind a ship. The gas ahead is shocked by the impact of the black hole moving through it at supersonic speed.
It is believed that this black hole began its journey after being ejected from a celestial ménage à trois. Two galaxies merged 50 million years ago and formed two giant black holes that spun around each other. But a third galaxy collided with its own black hole, creating an unstable and chaotic trio that ejected one of them at a speed high enough to travel between Earth and the Moon in just 14 minutes.
Astronomers say there is no cause for concern on Earth because this happened at a very far distance and a long time ago, when the universe was half its present age. The escaping black hole was discovered by accident while scanning the Hubble image. The star trail is “quite amazing, very, very bright, and very unusual.” This is the first black hole with a star trail to be spotted, but NASA cautions that it is not necessarily the only one. Its Nancy Grace Roman space telescope, scheduled for launch this decade, could lead to the discovery of more such events.