Brandon Specktor with LiveScience reports that ‘in 2023 astronomers reported the detection of something never seen before: a “runaway” black hole…’

The observed black hole with a mass of 20 million suns, is not gravitationally locked to any galaxy. It was spotted streaking darkly through space at more than 3 million miles per hour, or approximately 0.5% the speed of light, dragging a 200,000 light year long string of stars behind it like Christmas lights tied behind Santa’s sleigh.

Possible scenarios that may have sent the black hole on its merry way include various interactions with other massive objects, such as galactic collisions or gravitational recoil of merging black holes.

Source: 5 Space Discoveries that Scientists are Struggling to Explain by Brandon Specktor, LiveScience, 2024.  Graphic: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScl)