NASA astronomers have observed a supermassive black hole that is rotating at least 380 million miles per hour, or at half the speed of light.
To put that in perspective, that means the black hole—with a diameter 300 times larger than Earth—completes a rotation roughly every two minutes.
As detailed in a paper published Wednesday in Science, the team took the unprecedented measurement of the black hole’s rotation using observations from a suite of space-based x-ray observatories, including NASA’s Chandra telescope.
Astronomers were able to observe over 300,000 rotational cycles, giving the most precise measurement of a supermassive black hole ever taken.
The black hole, located about 290 million light years from Earth, first came to astronomers’ attention in 2014 after a strong burst of light was detected by optical telescopes. Upon closer investigation, astronomers discovered that the light was the result of a star getting torn to shreds by a supermassive black hole.