It’s likely black holes are careening through our galaxy, according to the research being done by Assistant Professor of Physics Kelly Holley-Bockelmann.

“It is not a huge danger,” said Holley-Bockelmann. “If a black hole flew by us, it would have to get really close before we felt any change in gravity and there is something like a one in nine trillion probability of us ever getting a black hole this close.”

Holley-Bockelmann conducts much of her research through computer simulations and the use of theory. Recently, scientists were able to use a computer simulation to merge two black holes together. “They discovered something totally weird, when two black holes are not perfectly the same mass, when they merge together the new black hole gets flung out at speeds that are 4,000 kilometers a second,” Holley-Bockelmann said.

Her research focuses on the result of a merger of a certain type of black hole, the intermediate black hole. Of the three types of black holes — super massive black hole, the most massive black hole; stellar mass black holes, the least massive black hole; and the intermediate black hole, the medium massed — the latter is the most mysterious.

“(Intermediate black holes) exist in globular clusters on the outskirts of most galaxies,” Holley-Bockelmann said. “This is a big deal because when two intermediate black holes merge and they get flung out at speeds higher than the escape speed of the galaxy itself.”

Essentially, when the intermediate black holes travel faster than the escape speed of the galaxy, they are able to leave the gravitational field of the galaxy itself. “There ought to be tons of middle weight black holes roaming the galaxy,” Holley-Bockelmann said.

Holley-Bockelmann said black hole research has changed dramatically over the past 15 years.

“There have been huge paradigm shifts … 20 years ago, these would have been crazy ideas,” she said.