The supermassive monster is tearing across the void, smashing through gas clouds in its path. This event presumably resulted from a strange game of cosmic billiards. Because of the tremendous pressures at work, this gas is being shaped into a path of brand new stars, which has been photographed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
Instead of consuming stars in its path like some kind of cosmic Pac-Man, the fast black hole is smashing into gas in front of it, causing star formation within a rather narrow corridor. There's no time for a snack; the black hole is moving too quickly. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope grabbed it by chance, and it's unlike anything anybody has ever seen before.
"We think we're seeing a wake behind the black hole where the gas cools and is able to form stars. So, we're looking at star formation trailing the black hole," said Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. "What we're seeing is the aftermath. Like the wake behind a ship we're seeing the wake behind the black hole."
The black hole is at the far end of a long column that originates in the parent galaxy. At the very tip of the column, ionised oxygen forms a brilliant knot. Scientists think the gas is being shocked and heated either by the black hole's velocity as it smashes into the gas or by radiation from an accretion disc around the black hole.
Several supermassive black hole collisions likely caused this cosmic skyrocket. Around 50 million years ago, astronomers think the first two galaxies joined. Because of it, two black holes with supermassive cores collided. Like a binary black hole, they spun incessantly around one another.
Also, READ: NASA's James Webb Telescope: Astronomers find enigmatic remnants of star that went supernova 340 years ago
.
A second galaxy with its own supermassive black hole eventually appeared. The traditional adage goes something like this: "Two's company, three's a crowd." Due to the three black holes interacting, the arrangement became unstable and chaotic. A third black hole was ejected from the host galaxy after it stole momentum from the other two. It's possible that the original binary is still together, or that the new black hole has come in and replaced one of the original pair.
