Could the Earth be swallowed by a “wandering black hole”?

According to a study recently published in the magazine Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society black holes may be the culprit in “absorbing” planets.

Scientists came to this conclusion after running a simulation test showing the formation and transition The movements of black holes and supermassive black holes have masses millions or even billions of times greater than the mass of the Sun.

Although researchers believe that The possibility of being absorbed by a black hole is real, but this rate is not large.

“Don’t worry, the possibility of us encountering a wandering supermassive black hole is very small. Space is so vast that even if two galaxies containing hundreds of billions of stars merge, their stars will not collide,” said Dr. Angelo Ricarte from Harvard University (USA), author of the study. said.

According to scientists, the larger the galaxy, the more black holes it has wandering around, and galaxy clusters have the potential to contain thousands of them.

< p>Supermassive black holes are extremely dense regions in the centers of galaxies with masses that can be billions of times that of the Sun. They act as anchors for swirling masses of gas, dust, stars, planets and galaxies other objects around them.

But luckily, most wandering black holes eventually merge with the supermassive black hole at the center of their new galaxy anyway.

Dr Ricarte added: “If there really is a supermassive black hole in our immediate vicinity we should be able to detect its presence from the motions of nearby stars “.

The number of black holes wandering in a given galaxy tends to increase linearly with the mass of the galaxy. With the Milky Way there may be about 12 but larger galaxies and galaxy clusters will have more.