For the first time, the Hubble Space Telescope has detected a lone object drifting through our Milky Way galaxy – the invisible, ghostly remains of a once radiant star.
When stars massive enough to dwarf our sun die, they explode in a supernova and the remaining core is crushed by its own gravity, forming a black hole.
Sometimes, the explosion may send the black hole into motion, hurtling across the galaxy like a pinball. By rights, there should be a lot of roving black holes known to scientists, but they are practically invisible in space and therefore very difficult to uncover.
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