Forget asteroids… there’s MILLIONS of wandering black holes capable of swallowing Earth

KEIO UNIVERSITY

An artist's illustration of a black hole dragging the Bullet Cloud

By analysing the gas motion of a cosmic cloud shooting through our galaxy at 100 kilometres per second, researchers discovered a black hole lurking inside.

Following the revelation, scientists believe there could be millions of these black holes wandering the galaxy.

Black holes are something of a mystery, with experts still knowing relatively little about them.

However, what they do know is that they have such an intense gravitational pull that not even light can escape from their grasp.

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There could be millions of black holes in our Milky Way

If there are truly millions of these black holes within the galaxy, it would put every planet and star at risk.

Unless there is a star near to a black hole, they are difficult to detect as there is little build up around it in the event horizon – the point near to a black hole where it becomes impossible for matter to escape.

The team from Keio University in Japan only discovered this black hole in question as it was propelling the cloud, known as ‘the bullet’ at such alarming speeds through the Milky Way.

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Only dozens of the wandering black holes have been found

Study lead Masaya Yamada said: "Most of the Bullet has an expanding motion with a speed of 50 km/s [31 miles per second], but the tip of the Bullet has a speed of 120 km/s [75 miles per second].

"Its kinetic energy is a few tens of times larger than that injected by the W44 supernova.

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“It seems impossible to generate such an energetic cloud under ordinary environments.”

So far, only dozens of these wandering black holes have been discovered, but this study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, has revealed that there are knew ways to detect them.

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