Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

[Huxter]

Pretty impressive, universally speaking! I bet these young 'kids' will be rather snobbish - being in such an elite group and all! The black hole is bottom left. It came from galaxy at top right supposedly.



"There's an invisible monster on the loose, barreling through intergalactic space so fast that if it were in our solar system, it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes. This supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000-light-year-long "contrail" of newborn stars, twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. It's likely the result of a rare, bizarre game of galactic billiards among three massive black holes."

https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/...black_hole_creating_a_trail_of_stars_999.html

 

[Hobie1dog]

Too far out there to comprehend such a thing. Science is really advancing very quickly.

 

[aerostadt]

I have not seen this story. By coincidence there is an article in the May issue of Astronomy magazine on Rogue Black Holes.

 

[lakeroadster]

I guess Aerosmith, Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler can't even help use out of that problem...

 

[bad_idea]

When explained, it seems like a very simple mechanism, but no one had thought of it (so far as I know) or observed it before. What a cool effect!

As an aside, a linear sub-galaxy would make an intriguing setting for all sorts of science fiction plots. Conquest (and the defense thereagainst), exploration and discovery, neverending Eton Wall Game-style war vs. a peer civilization, etc.