Runaway supermassive black hole RBH-1 offers new way to reconstruct ancient merger
Black holes are fascinating regions in space where gravity is so strong that nothing, even light, can escape them. The largest known black holes, called supermassive black holes, contain millions to billions of times the mass of the sun and are typically located at the centers of galaxies.
Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole, designated RBH-1, that appears to have been ejected from its host galaxy. This runaway black hole is moving at nearly 1,000 kilometers per second, a speed that could be explained by the merger of two supermassive black holes. The discovery, published in Physical Review Letters, provides a new way to reconstruct ancient merger events and gain insight into the history of galaxies and their central black holes.
The researchers used a combination of theoretical models and observational data to identify the masses and spins of the two merging black holes that likely produced RBH-1. They found that the merger involved a black hole with a mass between about 1 million and 30 million times that of the Sun, and that the binary system was likely spinning rapidly before the collision.
This study demonstrates how astronomical observations and theoretical models can be combined to "rewind the clock" and uncover the history of remarkable cosmic events, such as the formation of supermassive black holes.
Written by urgent.news from Phys.org's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
