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science23h ago
Thank The JWST For Confirming The First Runaway Supermassive Black Hole
- Latest development: JWST confirms a runaway supermassive black hole with a bow shock and a long wake in the Cosmic Owl galaxy.
- What/Where: The runaway SMBH is located at the tip of a 62 kpc long tail in the Cosmic Owl, a pair of ring galaxies about 8.8 billion light years away.
- When/Why: The SMBH likely escaped due to galaxy mergers, via three-body interaction or gravitational wave recoil.
- What’s new: JWST and HST data provide confirmation missing from earlier papers that identified the wake.
- Background: The Cosmic Owl consists of ring galaxies whose features resemble owl eyes as they merge.
- What’s observed: The tail is 200,000 light-years long and the bow shock lies at the head of the wake.
- Instrumentation: JWST/NIRSpec IFU and HST data enabled spatially resolved kinematics and shock evidence.
- Implication: Finding runaways helps understand SMBH dynamics during mergers and guides future surveys.
- Media notes: Evan Gough authored the Universe Today piece describing the JWST findings.
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