Supermassive black hole ejected from home galaxy

[robert l. bentham]

The odd event indicates that black holes could be roaming the universe, but since they absorb nearby gases, scientists may not be able to detect them.




The giant black hole appears to have collided and merged with another black hole. The newly supersized object then likely received a powerful recoil kick from gravitational wave radiation that booted it out into space at several million miles per hour, researchers said.

"It's hard to believe that a supermassive black hole weighing millions of times the mass of the sun could be moved at all, let alone kicked out of a galaxy at enormous speed," said study leader Francesca Civano, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), in a statement.

"But these new data support the idea that gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space first predicted by Albert Einstein but never detected directly — can exert an extremely powerful force," Civano added
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/supermassive-black-hole-ejected-from-home-galaxy
the end may not come with a bang after all, just a big schlurping sound...

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Super massive black wholes are still rare though. Much more likely to get smacked by a loose planet that's escaped from its star.

 

[faethor]

I'm confused. Why couldn't a black hole move? Sure it's super massive but if every force has an opposite and equal force why would a black hole be exempt from this law?

 

[robert l. bentham]

Super massive black wholes are still rare though. Much more likely to get smacked by a loose planet that's escaped from its star.

i would suggest to you that "maybe" that is true... until they reanalyze the data they already have they don't really have even a guess to that since they were only recently able to note the anomoly...imho

 

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Has Karlos been on some heavy curry again?

 

[cecilia]

Has Karlos been on some heavy curry again?