A group of scientists from Yale university discovered what appears to be a trace runaway supermassive black hole. That is, just as comets leave their mark, in this case, a black hole that flew out of its galaxy would leave a trail of new stars behind him.
They came to this conclusion thanks to images taken by the space telescope. Hubble and subsequent measurements using various instruments located at the Keck Observatory, in Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
The authors of the study want to confirm the data to be sure. And the fact is that if they confirm what they already suspect, this will be the first time that the evidence Runaway supermassive black hole. In addition, they have an interesting theory about how he was able to escape from the center of his galaxy with the help of to help two other black holes.
Star trail behind a black hole
The images that led to this discovery were first taken by Hubble. Thanks to him curious thin lineformed by young stars. It has been speculated for the past 50 years that supermassive black holes could lose control and leave their galaxy, but there has been no evidence to support this.
For this reason, it was the first suspicion of the scientists who discovered this line captured by Hubble. To see better, they ran to the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) and the Near Infrared Eshellet Spectrograph (NIRES) at the Keck Observatory. This allowed them to take closer pictures and further confirm their suspicions.
It was clearly visible that the line, from 200,000 light years long, consisted of young stars, and at its end was a luminous clot of ionized gas. The last thing that attracts attention is that in the galaxy from which this line is born, there is no black hole in its center. At least not the one that can be easily detected by the emission of energy jets in the form x-ray. Generally, all galaxies They have a black hole in the center. which can be detected in this way because it absorbs the matter around it. For this reason, his hypothesis is that whoever was there once was shot.
During his journey, he left behind a gas that, when cooling downcontributed to the formation of new stars. All of these stars were at least twice as bright as the rest of the galaxy, indicating they were young.
How was it shot?
These scientists not only have to confirm that they are dealing with a runaway supermassive black hole. They must also distinguish between He ran away. Although they already have a hypothesis.
Perhaps two galaxies, each with its own supermassive black hole in the middle, are attracted to each other. This would cause black holes to form binary system in which one will pull the other into an endless struggle. A fight that a third black hole might join. At this point you will create unstable situation which would cause two black holes to torpedo the third one as if it were a slingshot. It will fly out of its galaxy, leaving behind a trail of gas and new stars.
This would be a confirmation of what has always been assumed. But for greater certainty, it will be necessary to continue the study. Of course, black holes never cease to amaze us. This is only a small part of what remains to be known about them.
Source: Hiper Textual
