Supermassive black holes are in the centre of most galaxies.

The huge objects, some 100,000 to 10 billion times the sun's mass, are said to be the glue that holds galaxies together with their gravitational pull.

But astronomers have spotted one black hole that appears to be wandering around, making its way from a small galaxy into a larger one.

Astronomers have spotted one black hole which appears to be wandering from a small galaxy into a larger one. The XJ1417+52 black hole has been known to scientists for a while, but this is the first time they have observed it in a different position

THE XJ1417+52 BLACK HOLE The wandering black hole was found at the edge of galaxy GJ1417+52, about 4.5 billion light years from Earth. Its extreme brightness makes it likely the black hole has a mass of around 100,000 times that of the sun. It is 10 also times more distant than the previous record holder. Brightness emitted from this type of black hole comes from material falling towards it. XJ1417+52 reached peak brightness in 2000, and has since been declining. Advertisement

The discovery confirms a long-held theory that when two galaxies collide one of the two black holes can begin wandering.

The finding was made by researchers from the University of New Hampshire, using Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory.

The researchers carried out several observations of the object between 2000 and 2015.

The wandering black hole was found at the edge of galaxy GJ1417+52, about 4.5 billion light years from Earth.

'The black hole could have originally belonged to a small galaxy that plowed into the larger GJ1417+52 galaxy, stripping away most of the galaxy’s stars but leaving behind the black hole and its surrounding stars at the centre of the small galaxy,' Nasa said in a statement.

The researchers noticed an extremely bright X-ray source, located outside the centre of its parent galaxy.

This suggests the collision and merger of two galaxies.

As the stars, gas and dust from the second galaxy moves to the first, so does the black hole.

Its extreme brightness makes it likely the black hole has a mass of around 100,000 times that of the sun, and 10 times more distant than the previous record holder.

Brightness emitted from this type of black hole comes from material falling towards it.

The researchers noticed an extremely bright, variable x-ray source (pictured right) located outside the centre of its parent galaxy. This brightness was though to occur when a star passed too close to the black hole and was torn apart

XJ1417+52 reached peak brightness in 2000, and has since been declining.

The researchers suggest that the peak brightness occurred when a star passed too close to the black hole, and was torn apart by tidal forces.

The gaseous debris from the star would have been heated, and became bright as it fell towards the black hole, causing the spike in X-ray emission.

In the paper, the researchers, led by Dacheng Lin, wrote: 'Both the Chandra and XMM-Newton positions indicate that our X-ray source XJ1417+52 could be associated with the galaxy GJ1417+52.'