James Webb Spots First Ever Supermassive Black Hole to Be Yeeted Out of Its Home Galaxy

"Supermassive black holes have been found at the center of almost every galaxy, sucking up anything unlucky to fall into its maw - including light itself - through unfathomable gravitational forces. Even at the center of our own galaxy, astronomers have spotted such a black hole, dubbed Sagittarius A*. Despite their frequent appearance in observations, the mysterious astronomical objects largely remain a mystery. For now, we can only guess at how they formed."

"Now, an international team of astronomers claim to have made a baffling discovery with the help of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope: the first runaway supermassive black hole that's rocketing away from its home at a staggering, potentially record-setting speed of 2.2 million miles per hour. As Space.com reports, if confirmed it wouldn't just be the first object of its kind to have been spotted: it may be one of the fastest-moving celestial bodies ever detected, an intriguing new wrinkle in our efforts to better understand supermassive black holes."

"It's absolutely enormous, clocking in at 10 million times the mass of the Sun, and is careening through the "Cosmic Owl," an interacting pair of galaxies around eight billion light-years away. It's also pushing a "bow-shock" of matter the size of an entire galaxy in front of it, while allowing stars to form in an enormous 200,00 light-year-long tail of gas behind it."

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope observations indicate a candidate runaway supermassive black hole moving at roughly 2.2 million miles per hour. The object has an estimated mass of about 10 million Suns and resides in the interacting galaxy pair nicknamed the "Cosmic Owl" roughly eight billion light-years away. The black hole appears to be driving a galaxy-sized bow shock ahead of it and leaving a 200,000-light-year tail of gas where stars are forming. Confirmation of the runaway interpretation remains pending and would represent both a first-of-its-kind detection and an unusually high velocity for a celestial object.

Read at Futurism