Space & Astronomy

Entire swarm of black holes discovered moving through our galaxy

By T.K. Randall
February 22, 2026

Image: Black Hole - Large Magellanic Cloud
Credit: Alain r / CC BY-SA 2.5 (adapted) As if one black hole wasn't enough of a concern - imagine facing off against a whole swarm of them moving together through the interstellar void, gobbling up anything that happens to be in their path.

The existence of such a swarm was recently discovered within the Palomar 5 globular star cluster which is tailed by a stream of stars spanning 30,000 light-years of space.

"The number of black holes is roughly three times larger than expected from the number of stars in the cluster, and it means that more than 20 percent of the total cluster mass is made up of black holes," said astrophysicist Mark Gieles from the University of Barcelona."They each have a mass of about 20 times the mass of the Sun, and they formed in supernova explosions at the end of the lives of massive stars, when the cluster was still very young."

According to the researchers, within the next billion years or so the entire cluster will dissolve, leaving just the black holes orbiting the center of the galaxy.

It is now believed that black hole swarms such as this may be found in other globular clusters too.

Fortunately, in this case, the fate of Palomar 5 will have no impact on our own planet as the entire cluster is situated far off in space approximately 80,000 light-years away.

Source: Science Alert

Tags: Black Hole