Hubble Detects a Rogue Supermassive Black Hole

  • Released Thursday, March 23, 2017
View full credits

The Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a quasar named 3C 186 that is offset from the center of its galaxy. Astronomers hypothesize that this supermassive black hole was jettisoned from the center of its galaxy by the recoil from gravitational waves produced by the merging of two supermassive black holes.

Read the press release here - https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/feature/gravitational-wave-kicks-monster-black-hole-out-of-galactic-core

Download the Hubble images here - http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-12

Read the science paper here - http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hvi/uploads/science_paper/file_attachment/231/3c186.pdf

Music credit: "Stealth Car" by Tom Sue [GEMA] and Zac Singer [GEMA]; Ed. Berlin Production Music/Universal Publishing Production Music GmbH GEMA; Berlin Production Music; Killer Tracks Production Music

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Thursday, March 23, 2017.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:47 PM EDT.

Missions

This page is related to the following missions: