A supermassive black hole is set to collide with the Milky Way

21 February 2025

It’s true: a supermassive black hole is on a collision course with our galaxy. But the happening is at least two billion years away.

And even then it may not be a black hole, but rather a “massive invisible object” thought to lurk within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a smaller galaxy that presently orbits the Milky Way, but which is slowly falling towards us. Once the LMC collides — though merge is probably a more apt word — with the Milky Way, the black hole, or whatever the invisible body that the LMC hosts, will make a bee-line for Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

When those two objects eventually collide — an event that will unfold at a likewise cosmologically glacial pace — the result will be the formation of an even more monstrous black hole.

While the black hole merger process may be drawn out, assuming a black hole indeed resides inside the LMC, it will no doubt be a bumpy ride for whatever interstellar objects lie in the path of the two, as they fuse together. Perhaps the solar system will find itself in harm’s way here. The only consolation there is it’s something we won’t be around to see.