Illustration of Recoiling Black Hole
Using data from Chandra and other telescopes, astronomers have found a possible "recoiling" black hole. This black hole, which contains about 160 million solar masses, may have formed and then been set in motion by the collision of two smaller black holes (depicted in the artist's illustration). Astronomers found this candidate recoiling black hole after sifting through data of thousands of galaxies. Such moving supermassive black holes are interesting because they may reveal more about the rate and direction of spin for these enigmatic objects before they merge.
(Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)

X-ray & Optical Images of CXO J101527.2+625911
The left image is from the Hubble data, which shows two bright points near the middle of the galaxy. One of them is located at the center of the galaxy and the other is located about 3,000 light years away from the center. The latter source shows the properties of a growing supermassive black hole and its position matches that of a bright X-ray source detected with Chandra (right image). Using data from the SDSS and the Keck telescope in Hawaii, the team determined that the growing black hole located near, but visibly offset from, the center of the galaxy has a velocity that is different from the galaxy. These properties suggest that this source may be a recoiling supermassive black hole.
(X-ray: NASA/CXC/NRAO/D.-C.Kim; Optical: NASA/STScI;)