JWST confirms first-ever runaway supermassive black hole fleeing its galaxy at 2.2 million mph

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have confirmed RBH-1, a supermassive black hole at least 10 million times the mass of our Sun, being ejected from its host galaxy in the "Cosmic Owl" system at 954 km/s. First spotted by Hubble in 2023 as an unexplained 200,000-light-year streak, JWST's NIRSpec data in December 2025 proved it's a runaway black hole dragging a bow shock and a trail of newborn stars behind it — the first direct confirmation of a phenomenon predicted for over 50 years. Video Credit: NASA References: A Candidate Runaway Supermassive Black Hole”, via iopscience.iop.org: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/acba86 “JWST Confirmation of a Runaway Supermassive Black Hole”, via arxiv.org:https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.04166