Hubble Detects a Rogue Supermassive Black Hole

  • Released Thursday, March 23rd, 2017
  • Updated Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 1:47PM
  • ID: 12539

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



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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center


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