Something Unexpected Is Spewing Stars Into the Milky Way
1 min read
Summary
Researchers at Harvard Center for Astrophysics believe a dwarf galaxy adjacent to the Milky Way called the Large Magellanic Cloud could be hosting a supermassive black hole hundreds of thousands of times the mass of the sun.
Most theories on galactic evolution state that such black holes are only present in the largest galaxies.
The existence of a mysterious group of hypervelocity stars in the Milky Way, moving at speeds of up to 1,000 km per second, suggests they were ejected by a supermassive black hole, as they could not have originated from the Milky Way itself.
The team, led by Jiwon Jesse Han, believe the black hole could have a mass between 251,000 and 1 million times that of the sun.
Further research will be conducted to confirm whether or not the Large Magellanic Cloud does indeed contain a supermassive black hole.
