Do Solo Black Holes Roam the Universe?

sciencehabit writes "Two mysterious bright spots in a disheveled, distant galaxy suggest that astronomers have found the best evidence yet for a supermassive black hole being shoved out of its home. If confirmed, the finding would verify Einstein's theory of general relativity in a region of intense gravity not previously tested. The results would also suggest that some giant black holes roam the universe as invisible free floaters, flung from the galaxies in which they coalesced. Although loner black holes may be an entity that has to be reckoned with, they would still be rare."

Comments

Re:Do black holes clean their plate?

[Charliemopps]

No... the stars in a galaxy are orbiting their own collective center of gravity, not the blackhole. It just so happens that this collective center of gravity often attracts enough stars that it collapses into a super massive black hole. The most likely scenario for the blackhole to lose it's galaxy is in a collision with another galaxy (although "Collision" is a bad word since nothing actually hits anything else) The center of mass of the 2 combined galaxies would radically change rather suddenly (in galactic terms) and the Super massive blackhole would begin orbiting the new center of gravity. If it's orbit is too far out, it would get flung off. In most situations stars would get flung out with it. But rarely it could shoot off on it's own.

Re:Rare and dying

[maroberts]

The theoretical evaporation of black holes is an incredibly slow process; a black hole the mass of the sun would only evaporate after some 10^67 years. which considering the age of the universe is 13x10^9 years (or about 6000 if you're a creationist) means it won't disappear any time soon.