Black holes are regions of space-time where gravity is so intense that nothing — not even light – can escape. As a result, anything that comes too close to black holes, including stars and planets, is doomed.
Good news, Earthlings: we no longer need to be concerned about the coronavirus outbreak because we have larger concerns – wandering and supermassive black holes, which Harvard University researchers predict might devour our planet in the blink of an eye.
According to recent research published in the international Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, black holes become vagabonds unwillingly when their home galaxy collides with another, which is usually larger.
This process sends black holes roaming, and as previously said, the consequences would be beyond awful if they came too close to a planet. The scientists reached this result by running a simulation test that demonstrated the development and migration of black holes and supermassive black holes (as the name implies, these black holes have a mass of millions or even billions of times the mass of the Sun).
Although researchers believe the possibility of being swallowed by a black hole exists, the odds are small.
Don’t worry, the odds of us encountering a wandering supermassive black hole are vanishingly small. Space is so vast that even when two galaxies containing hundreds of billions of stars merge together, their stars do not collide. If there really were a supermassive black hole right in our vicinity, we would be able to detect its presence from the motions of nearby stars”
said Dr Angelo Ricarte from Harvard University and author of the study.
Image Credit: GEtty