Physicists Determine Cause of "Runaway" Supermassive Black Hole
Researchers at UCSB and UT Austin have determined that a galactic merger kicked a supermassive black hole into intergalactic space.
In September 2022, astronomers discovered an extraordinary feature in a galaxy located about 7.5 billion light-years away from Earth. The feature, named RBH-1, stretched over 202,000 light-years from the galaxy's center and ended with an unresolved object moving near the speed of 1,000 km/s. This object, presumed to be a supermassive black hole (SMBH) ejected from its galaxy, formed the basis for a study by a team led by astronomers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
The team's research, published in Physical Review Letters, identified the SMBH's origin as a violent merger event, providing valuable insights into the evolution of SMBHs and their respective galaxies.
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