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There’s an invisible giant monster on the
loose!

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It’s barreling through intergalactic space
fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon

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in 14 minutes.

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But don’t worry, luckily this beast is very,
very far away!

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This potential supermassive black hole, weighing
as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind

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a never-before-seen 200,000 light-year-long
trail of newborn stars.

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The streamer is twice the diameter of our
Milky Way galaxy.

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It’s likely the result of a rare, bizarre
game of galactic billiards among three massive

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black holes.

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Astronomers suspect that first two galaxies
merged perhaps 50 million years ago.

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That brought together two supermassive black
holes at their centers.

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They whirled around each other until another
galaxy came along with its own supermassive

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black hole.

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The three of them chaotically orbited around
each other.

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This unstable configuration couldn’t last,
and eventually one of them was violently flung

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out of the host galaxy.

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Rather than gobbling up stars ahead of it,
this speedy black hole is plowing into gas

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in front of it to trigger new star formation
along a narrow corridor.

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The next step is to do follow-up observations
with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and

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the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

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Also, NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman
Space Telescope will have a wide-angle view

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of the universe with Hubble’s high resolution.

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As a survey telescope, the Roman observations
might find more of these rare and improbable

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events elsewhere in the universe.

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Hubble, once again showing us that the universe
is full of fascinating phenomena!

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Follow us on social media @NASAHubble