A rogue black hole is a

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

that is not bound by any object's gravity, allowing them to float freely throughout the universe. Since black holes emit no light, the only ways to detect them are

gravitational lensing A gravitational lens is matter, such as a galaxy cluster, cluster of galaxies or a point particle, that bends light from a distant source as it travels toward an observer. The amount of gravitational lensing is described by Albert Einstein's Ge ...

x-ray bursts An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

that occur when they destroy an object.

Intergalactic rogue black holes

These are objects without a host galactic group, caused by collisions between two galaxies or when the merging of two black holes is disrupted. It has been estimated that there could be 12 rogue supermassive black holes on the edge of the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

galaxy.

Interstellar rogue black holes

Examples

In January 2022, a team of astronomers reported of OGLE-2011-BLG-0462/MOA-2011-BLG-191, the first unambiguous detection and mass measurement of an isolated

stellar black hole A stellar black hole (or stellar-mass black hole) is a black hole formed by the gravitational collapse of a star. They have masses ranging from about 5 to several tens of solar masses. They are the remnants of supernova explosions, which may be ...

using the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

together with the

Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA) is a collaborative project between researchers in New Zealand and Japan, led by Professor Yasushi Muraki of Nagoya University. They use gravitational microlensing, microlensing to observe dark mat ...

(MOA) and the

Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) is a Polish astronomy, astronomical project based at the University of Warsaw that runs time-domain astronomy, a long-term variability sky survey (1992–present). The main goals are the detecti ...

(OGLE). This black hole is located 5,000

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year (ly or lyr), is a unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equal to exactly , which is approximately 9.46 trillion km or 5.88 trillion mi. As defined by the International Astr ...

s away, has a mass 7.1 times that of the Sun, and moves at about 45 km/s. While there have been other candidates, they have been detected more indirectly.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rogue black hole Black holes Extragalactic astronomy

Intergalactic rogue black holes

Interstellar rogue black holes

Examples

See also

References