Science and Technology
Runaway black hole creating trail of new stars.

Runaway black hole creating trail of new stars

Science and Technology

A huge black hole is tearing through space, leaving behind a 200,000-light-year-long trail of newborn stars, space scientists said. The supermassive monster -- likely born of a bizarre game of intergalactic billiards -- is rampaging through the blackness and plowing into gas clouds in its path.

The incredible forces at play mean this gas is being forged into a contrail of new stars, which have been captured on camera by NASA's powerful Hubble Space Telescope.

"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 of Yale University.

"What we're seeing is the aftermath. Like the wake behind a ship, we're seeing the wake behind the black hole."

Researchers believe gas is probably being blasted and warmed by the motion of the black hole.

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

The black hole weighs about the same as 20 million of our Suns. Scientists believe it began its rampage after being ejected from a celestial menage-a-trois.

The working theory is that two galaxies probably merged about 50 million years earlier, bringing together two supermassive black holes, which whirled around each other harmoniously.

But a third galaxy butted in with its own black hole, creating an unstable and chaotic scene that eventually saw one of them ejected at high speed -- fast enough to travel between the Earth and the Moon in just 14 minutes.

Stargazers say there is no cause for earthly concern because this is all very far away.