A Runaway Supermassive Black Hole! | Mr. Universe

We know that centers of most galaxies host supermassive black holes. Our own Milky Way has a modest size black hole. But now there is a fascinating picture from Hubble Space Telescope that suggests that a supermassive black hole, with a mass of about 20 million Suns, was ejected from the center of its galaxy. And it has been creating stars as it compresses due to the shock waves produced because of its motion. In fact, there may be binary supermassive black holes also ejected from the center of the same galaxy. Here, Monte Belmonte and astrophysicist Salman Hameed talk about these runaway black holes in this episode of Mr. Universe.

Reference paper:
Pieter van Dokkum et al 2023 ApJL 946 L50

An edited version of this segment air on The Fabulous 413 on NEPM: You can listen to it here:
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Salman Hameed has a PhD in astronomy and is Charles Taylor Chair and Professor of Integrated Science & Humanities at Hampshire College, and a member of the Five College Astronomy Department (FCAD) in Massachusetts, USA. He is also the CEO of the non-profit Kainaat Studios

Credits:
Hosts: Monte Belmonte & Salman Hameed
Editor: Shehryar Shaikh
Music: "Gates of Gagashah" by Zohaib Kazi

Major support for Kainaat Studios is provided by:
Sahr Foundation
Dr. Zafar Iqbal & Dr. Mehr Iqbal
PixelEdge
AIIR Foundation

[ShahidHussain-oqsp]

An interesting and intelligent story ❤