NASA astronomers have discovered a massive black hole that was ejected from the center of its host galaxy. Scientists believe it was caused by gravitational waves. This was reported on the agency's website.
A black hole with a mass of a billion suns was discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists have calculated that in order for this object to be ejected from the center of the galaxy, it takes the energy of 100 million supernovae that exploded simultaneously. According to the researchers, the black hole arose from the merger of smaller black holes rotating around each other, and the gravitational waves generated by the cataclysm pushed it out of the galactic core.
The black hole is part of the quasar 3C 186, which, in turn, is located in a galaxy eight billion light-years away from the Milky Way. The object has covered more than 35 thousand light years, and its speed is 7.5 million kilometers per hour.
3C 186 would fly from Earth to the Moon in three minutes. It is estimated that it will leave its parent galaxy in 20 million years.
Quasars are a class of objects that are active galactic nuclei. They release enormous amounts of energy and consist of a supermassive black hole surrounded by a rapidly spinning disk of gas.