Gravitational Waves Boot Gigantic Black Hole from Galaxy's Core

[Zorro]

A supermassive black hole heftier than 1 billion suns has been ejected from the core of its galaxy by gravitational waves, a new study suggests.

The monster black hole has already zoomed 35,000 light-years away from its galaxy's center, farther than Earth and its sun are from the core of our own Milky Way. And the behemoth is currently traveling outward at 4.7 million mph (7.6 million km/h) — fast enough for the black hole to escape its galaxy completely in 20 million years, researchers said.

“We estimate that it took the equivalent energy of 100 million supernovae exploding simultaneously to jettison the black hole,” study co-author Stefano Bianchi, from Roma Tre University in Italy, said in a statement. [The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]

The study team used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to study the galaxy 3C186, which lies about 8 billion light-years from Earth. Hubble images revealed a quasar — the incredibly bright energetic signature of a supermassive black hole — within the galaxy.

http://www.space.com/36187-gravitational-waves-boot-supermassive-black-hole.html

[pangaia]

1. Those numbers and distances are just beyond my comprehension.

I mean, 35,000 light years I can begin to pretend to grasp. Maybe.....
But 4.7 million MPH, and still taking 20,000,000 years.....

That is definitely farther than the grocery store ! But I have no idea how much farther.

[Jonny Appleseed]

2. Wasn't the supermassive black hole theory one that a single massive black hole exists

in the center of the galaxy? Now there are more?

[Thor_MN]

3. Are you maybe conflating galaxies with the Universe?

There are lots of galaxies.

[Jonny Appleseed]

4. I was under the assumption the it was 1 supermassive black hole:1 galaxy

[Thor_MN]

5. As galaxies collide and merge (or not), there would not be a hard and fast 1:1 ratio.