There have been a lot of strange signs in the skies as of late, whether they be once-in-a-lifetime eclipses, asteroids whizzing by earth at closer than comfortable distances. And now we find out that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is hurtling toward a collision with a supermassive black hole.
The black hole, which is contained within the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is a dwarf galaxy that orbits our own, was detected as part of a journey toward one day merging with the Milky Way. However, this particular event is not set to happen for billions of years, so who knows if Earth or humanity will even still be here at that point.
Regardless, this is a stunning discovery and goes to show that there’s so much happening in our own galaxy that we aren’t aware of right now that disaster could be right around the corner and we wouldn’t know it until its too late.
Research into this black hole is being led by Jiwon Jesse Han with the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Han has now identified the presence of the supermassive black hole that lies within the LMC, which is, as we speak, falling toward our galaxy.
“This black hole is estimated to weigh around 600,000 solar masses, significantly smaller than the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, which weighs about 4.3 million solar masses. The discovery is currently available on the preprint server arXiv and has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal for further peer review,” the Daily Galaxy reported.
“The detection of this hidden black hole was no easy feat, as black holes themselves do not emit detectable radiation unless they are actively consuming matter. Instead, the researchers had to employ indirect methods to uncover the object’s presence. Using hypervelocity stars—stars that travel at speeds much higher than the typical stars within a galaxy—the researchers were able to trace their motion and deduce that they were likely ejected by gravitational interactions with an unseen, massive object. The Hills mechanism, a phenomenon where a black hole interacts with two stars, causing one to be ejected at hypervelocity, played a key role in the researchers’ discovery,” it added.
It should be noted that it’s extremely difficult to actually identify black holes because they do not give off any light or radiation due to a lack of matter build up. The best tool that astronomers have at their disposal for identifying these phenomenon is the movement of nearby stars.
If a star is moving in a strange way that can’t be explained by the gravitational pull of other known objects, there’s a strong indication it could be due to a black hole.
“This new finding provides important insights into the growth of black holes. It suggests that black holes do not necessarily need to start out as massive objects; instead, they may grow over time through interactions with other stars, eventually leading to the formation of supermassive black holes. The discovery challenges our understanding of black hole evolution and provides a new datapoint in the study of how black holes grow from stellar-mass objects to the monstrous, supermassive entities we observe in the centers of galaxies,” the article said.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is in orbit around the Milky Way and is said to be located 160,000 light-years away. It will take an estimated 2 billion years for the LMC to collide with our galaxy.
Once that happens, a chain of events will begin to take place, including the supermassive black hole merging with Sagittarius A, which will result in an even bigger black hole.
The big takeaway here is that all things are destined to come to an end. You and I are finite creatures with a set number of days to live on earth. Sooner or later, our time will be up. The same thing can be said for this planet. Either Jesus Christ returns, some disaster befalls humanity, or, over billions of years, we get swallowed by a black hole.
Make the most of the time you have while you have it.
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