Astronomers Detect ‘Restless’ Supermassive Blackhole Wandering In Space

Astronomers have detected a ”restless” supermassive blackhole wandering in space, in a recent study.

The research published in the Astrophysical Journal was conducted by scientists at the Center for Astrophysics: Harvard and Smithsonian.

For their search, the team initially surveyed 10 distant galaxies and the supermassive black holes at their cores. They specifically studied black holes that contained water within their accretion disks – the spiral structures that spin inward towards the black hole.

As the water orbits around the black hole, it produces a laser-like beam of radio light known as a maser.

When studied with a combined network of radio antennas using a technique known as very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), masers can help measure a black hole’s velocity very precisely, Pesce says.
The technique helped the team determine that nine of the 10 supermassive black holes were at rest-but one stood out and seemed to be in motion.