MAXI J1659-152, a black hole more than three times the size of our sun is feeding off of a red dwarf companion star that is about a fifth of the size of our sun. They’re roughly a million kilometers apart, and the orbit is happening once every 2.4 hours.

That means the orbit is about (c=pi*d .. 3.14*1,000,000) 3,140,000 km, which is being completed in 2.4 hours (3140000/2.4), making the speed roughly 1308333 km/h, or just over 20k per minute. That’s 360 km per second. The speed of sound through air is about 340.29 METERS per second. A thousand times faster than sound through air.

That’s over six times faster than the Earth is orbiting the sun, and this thing is twenty times the size of our planet. It’s like comparing a roadside jogger at a good clip to a full-sized pickup truck doing 60 miles an hour.

…and I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea of a black hole three hundred times the size of Earth.