Runaway Black Hole Leaves Trail of Infant Stars in Its Wake

A supermassive black hole, ejected from its galaxy, is being trailed by a 200,000 light-year-long chain of infant stars, according to a new study. The Hubble Space Telescope identified the incredible sight, which is like nothing astronomers have spotted before. The black hole is traveling so fast that it would cover the distance between Earth and the moon in just 14 minutes. As it travels, the cosmic runaway is piling up gas in front of it, creating a corridor of infant stars. The next step for this research will be to search for evidence of binary black holes with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.