This enormous monster, whose mass is equivalent to 20 million times that of our sun, is unleashed in the interstellar vacuum and collides with the gas clouds which are on its way.
Given the outsized forces at play, this gas then turns into a trail of stars, which were spotted by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
“We think we see a wake behind the black hole where the gas cools and can form stars,” Yale University scientist Pieter van Dokkum said in a statement. “What we see are the followingmath. Like the wake of a ship, we see the wake of the black hole.”
The researchers believe the gas is likely warmed by the collision with the black hole, then cools following it passes, giving rise to the stars seen in its path.
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“The gas in front of it is hit by the supersonic, very high-velocity impact of the black hole,” van Dokkum said.
For us, poor humans, there is no risk of being swallowed by this huge celestial object, according to the researchers responsible for this discovery. All of this happened way out in space and a long time ago, when the universe was half its current age.
We see this phenomenon today because the light took such a long time to reach us.
This discovery was made by accident, according to Mr van Dokkum using the Hubble telescope.
