Hubble Space Telescope accidentally finds black hole creating a trail of new stars

NASA has captured images of a stunning phenomenon, revealing something extraordinary happening galaxies away.

A massive black hole is tearing through space, leaving a trail of newborn stars in its wake, according to space scientists.

The supermassive monster is rampaging through the blackness, ploughing into gas clouds and forging them into a 200,000-light-year-long contrail of new stars.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured the stunning phenomenon.

“We think we’re seeing a wake behind the black hole where the gas cools and is able to form stars,” said Pieter van Dokkum, an astronomer at Yale University.

“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 believed to be 20 million times heavier than our Sun and is the result of a bizarre, intergalactic billiards game.

Two galaxies merged about 50 million years earlier, bringing together two supermassive black holes that whirled around each other harmoniously. However, a third galaxy with its own black hole interfered, creating an unstable and chaotic scene that eventually saw one of them ejected at high speed.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured the stunning phenomenon, which was discovered by accident. Picture: AFP PHOTO / LEAH HUSTAK

The runaway black hole travelled a distance equivalent to that between the Earth and the Moon in just 14 minutes.

“This is the first tearaway blac khole ever detected,” said Professor van Dokkum.

“I was just scanning through the Hubble image, and then I noticed that we have a little streak. It didn’t look like anything we’ve seen before.”

He added that the star trail was “quite astonishing, very, very bright, and very unusual.”

While there is no cause for concern here on Earth, as the phenomenon is far away and occurred a long time ago, the discovery is still significant. The runaway black hole was discovered by accident, and it might not be the only one, according to NASA.

The agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to launch sometime this decade, giving astronomers a much more expansive view of the universe and possibly leading to the discovery of more of these star-forming runaways.

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

“We’re seeing the gas being blasted and warmed by the motion of the black hole.”

The incredible forces at play behind this phenomenon create a trail of new stars that might not have existed otherwise, and it’s fascinating to see it happening in real-time, thanks to the powerful technology we have at our disposal.

– with AFP