Overview
- JWST’s NIRSpec measurements reveal sharp blueshift and redshift patterns across the bow shock, with gas behind the shock moving about 600 km/s faster than gas ahead.
- The object, dubbed RBH-1, is clocked at roughly 954 km/s and has a mass of at least 10 million Suns, according to the research team.
- Observations show a galaxy-scale bow shock in front of the object and a star-forming wake about 200,000 light-years long trailing behind.
- Researchers favor recoil from a recent supermassive black hole merger as the ejection mechanism, while a three-body interaction remains a viable alternative.
- Located in the Cosmic Owl system at a lookback time of roughly 7.5 billion years, the runaway appears to be leaving its host for intergalactic space, as reported in a preprint.