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Astronomers have spotted a runaway black hole, which was ejected from its home galaxy. And thrown into space with a chain of stars trailing in its wake. 

An international team of researchers and astronomers was led by Pieter van Dokkum, a professor of physics and astronomy at Yale University. 

He reported to Live science that "We found a thin line in a Hubble image that is pointing to the center of a galaxy. Using the Keck telescope in Hawaii, we found that the line and the galaxy are connected. From a detailed analysis of the feature, we inferred that we are seeing a very massive black hole that was ejected from the galaxy, leaving a trail of gas and newly formed stars in its wake."

According to the team's research, which was published on February 9 in Cornell University’s arXiv.org in the Astrophysics of Galaxies section. And will soon be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Researchers claim the discovery offers the first observational evidence that supermassive black holes can be ejected from their home galaxies. And pushed into interstellar space.

Runaway black hole has a massive tail 

The researchers observed the runaway black hole as a bright streak of light seen with the Hubble Space Telescope. It was discovered while they were observing the dwarf galaxy RCP 28, which is located 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. 

The scientist's follow-up observations confirmed the streak measures more than 200,000 light-years long. This is about twice the width of the Milky Way. And it is believed to be made of compressed gases that are actively forming stars. 

The gas trails of the black hole are estimated to measure 20 million times the mass of the sun. And are observed speeding away from its’ home galaxy at 3.5 million mph (5.6 million km/h). This incredible speed is 4,500 times the speed of sound.

Astronomers need to find out how common these massive phenomena are.

"Ejected supermassive black holes had been predicted for 50 years but none have been unambiguously seen," van Dokkum claims "Most theorists think that there should be many out there."