Astronomers have found what appears to be the closest supermassive black hole outside of our own Milky Way galaxy. This giant black hole is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the closest satellite galaxy to our own.

To make this discovery, researchers traced the paths of 21 stars on the outskirts of the Milky Way using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. These “hypervelocity” stars are traveling so fast that they will escape the gravitational clutches of the Milky Way or any nearby galaxy.

Like forensic experts recreating the paths of bullets, the researchers were able to determine where these hypervelocity stars came from. They found that about half are linked to th