“We don’t expect most supermassive black holes to be in motion; they are usually content to just stay put, ”Pesce said in a statement. “They are just so heavy that it is difficult to get them going. Think how much more difficult it is to get a bowling ball moving than it is to kick a soccer ball – realizing that in this case the ‘bowling ball’ is a few million times the mass of our sun. That takes quite a powerful staircase. “
Pesce said in an email that the study’s findings are significant in two ways.
“On a superficial level, these findings are significant for adding a data point to our currently near-empty list of known mobile supermassive black holes,” he said. “Looking at a somewhat bigger picture, this mobile [black holes] are evidence of supermassive black hole growth in action. A supermassive black hole moving relative to its host galaxy is a strong indication that the system is either about to undergo supermassive black hole binary fusion, or that it has recently done so. “
In either scenario, the movement provides “exciting circumstantial evidence for the reality” of supermassive black hole mergers, he said.
The black hole at the center of this study is located in a galaxy called J0437 + 2456, 230 million light years from Earth. The mass of the black hole is three million times the mass of the sun.
Researchers observed the supermassive black holes in the center of 10 galaxies and tried to distinguish their speeds. In doing so, they discovered that one of the 10 black holes appeared to be in motion.
“The fact that in such a small sample we seem to have discovered a mobile supermassive black hole – especially when stacked against the fact that there are previous searches that have combed through orders of magnitude more objects and turned up empty-handed -” implies they might not be that rare after all, ”he wrote.
Pesce was quick to note that he is not the first person to suggest that black holes are in motion. He said it’s an idea scientists have been thinking about for years.
The study unfolded in two phases, Pesce said. First, researchers identified which galaxies could be potential candidates for a supermassive black hole to move in their centers. At that stage, J0437 + 2456 was identified as a particularly promising candidate. From there, they performed “dedicated follow-up observations of J0437 + 2456 with the Arecibo and Gemini North telescopes, both to improve the accuracy of the initial measurement and to ensure that we were not fooled by systematic effects specific to any one measurement class, ”wrote Pesce.
Black holes are objects in space with a gravity so strong that nothing can escape, according to NASA.
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected]Follow him on Twitter @ charliemckenna9.