Second “Big Bang” spotted
Astronomers have spotted a supermassive black hole swallowing a galaxy, creating a hole in space over 2 million light years across.
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Astronomers have spotted a supermassive black hole swallowing a galaxy, creating a hole in space over 2 million light years across.
On February, astronomers published findings suggesting they’ve discovered the biggest black hole-triggered explosion since the Big Bang that created the universe.
The astronomers used the super Giant Meter Wave Telescope at the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in Washington D.C. to observe what they report was a monstrous black hole devouring a galaxy. The result was a hole ripped in space 2.85 million light years across.
In a NASA press release, lead astronomer Simona Giantucci is quoted as saying, “In some ways, this blast is similar to how the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 ripped off the top of the mountain.”
She added, “A key difference is that you could fit fifteen Milky Way galaxies in a row into the crater this eruption punched into the cluster’s hot gas.”
The Big Bang-like event was spotted in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster, which is 390 million light years away from our own planet.
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