Runaway black hole creating trail of new stars discovered by accident with Hubble Space Telescope.

 Extract from ABC News

Posted 23 hours ago

YouTube NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures possible runaway black hole.

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A huge black hole is tearing through space, leaving behind a 200,000-light-year-long trail of newborn stars, space scientists say.

Key points:

• The black hole weighs as much as 20 million suns 
• It has left behind a train of 200,000 new stars
• Scientists say the black hole was discovered, by accident, through the Hubble Space Telescope

Rampaging through the blackness and ploughing into gas clouds in its path, the supermassive monster is likely born of a bizarre game of intergalactic billiards.

The incredible forces at play mean this gas is being forged into a contrail of new stars that have been captured on camera by NASA's powerful Hubble Space Telescope.

"We think we're seeing a wake behind the black hole where the gas cools and is able to form stars," Yale University's Pieter van Dokkum said.

"What we're seeing is the aftermath. Like the wake behind a ship, we're seeing the wake behind the black hole."

The supermassive black hole was likely borne of a bizarre game of intergalactic billiards and is rampaging through the blackness and ploughing into gas clouds in its path.(AFP: NASA )

Researchers say gas is probably being blasted and warmed by the motion of the black hole.

"Gas in front of it gets shocked because of this supersonic, very high-velocity impact of the black hole moving through the gas," Professor van Dokkum said.

The black hole weighs about the same as 20 million of our Sun.

Scientists say it began its rampage after being ejected from a celestial ménage à trois.

The working theory is that two galaxies probably merged about 50 million years earlier, bringing together two supermassive black holes, which whirled around each other harmoniously.

Astrophysicists announce the first image of a black hole in 2019.

However, a third galaxy butted in with its own black hole, creating an unstable and chaotic scene that eventually saw one of them ejected at high speed, fast enough to travel a distance equivalent to that between the Earth and the Moon in just 14 minutes.

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Stargazers say there is no cause for concern here on Earth, because this is all very far away.

It is also a long time ago, back when the universe was half of its current age.

We are seeing it now because of the time it has taken for light to arrive here.

The runaway black hole — which has never been seen before — was discovered by accident, Professor van Dokkum said.

"I was just scanning through the Hubble image and then I noticed that we have a little streak," he explained.

"It didn't look like anything we've seen before," adding the star trail was "quite astonishing, very, very bright and very unusual."

Ultramassive black hole detected using gravitational lensing(Supplied: Durham University)

While this is the first tearaway black hole ever detected, it might not be the only one, NASA says.

Their Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — which is expected to launch some time this decade — should give astronomers a much wider view of the universe, and could lead to the discovery of more of these star-forming runaways.

AFP