The Hubble Space Telescope has found evidence of a "wandering" black hole about 5000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers estimate that there could be 100 million black holes wandering around our galaxy.
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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TechTranscript
00:00 Though an estimated 100 million black holes roam our Milky Way galaxy,
00:05 these objects are invisible and so very difficult to detect.
00:08 Astronomers now believe they may have precisely measured the mass of an isolated black hole
00:14 for the first time. After six years of observations, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
00:20 found evidence for a lone black hole about 5,000 light-years away wandering through interstellar
00:27 space. Black holes roaming our galaxy are born from rare monstrous stars less than one thousandth
00:35 of the galaxy's stellar population that are many times more massive than our sun. These stars die
00:41 in supernova explosions. Their core is crushed by the star's own gravity into a black hole.
00:48 Because the detonation is asymmetrical, the black hole may get a kick,
00:52 sending it careening through our galaxy. Hubble detected the magnified and deflected light from
00:59 a star lined up exactly behind the potential black hole as its intense gravity warps space itself.
01:06 The measurements indicate the black hole weighs seven solar masses and is traveling through space
01:13 at 100,000 miles per hour. But don't worry, there's a lot of space between Earth and this
01:20 roaming black hole.
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