Re: can a black hole be moved?

Gravity is of course what makes black holes and other objects attract each other - and it is also the same force that makes things fall to the earth! What is not always apparent about gravity is that it actually acts on both objects. This means that when an apple falls to the earth, the earth is actually moved toward the apple as well! The difference is that the earth is so much more massive than the apple, so we don't detect the motion of the earth. While we usually think of the earth orbiting the sun and the sun sitting still, this is not quite true. The sun moves in a very small orbit as well! (This is actually how astronomers detect planets around other stars.)

Many black holes exist in binary systems with other stars; these black holes orbit the other star, and the other star orbits the black hole. So black holes do move! The earth is much less massive than these stars, so it wouldn't move the black hole as much - but it would move it!