Recently Discovered Galaxy Is Mind Bogglingly Huge

Astronomers recently discovered a new galaxy, and its gigantic proportions are enough to boggle your mind. The galaxy is called Alcyoneus, and it’s 3 billion light-years away from Earth. How far it is from our planet isn’t the news here, the news is that Alcyoneus is an absolutely titanic radio galaxy that spreads five megaparsecs into space.

Five megaparsecs is equivalent to 16.3 million light-years. Scientists confirm that it is the largest known structure of Galactic original. Scientists are unsure precisely what drives the galaxy to grow so massive.

They know that radio galaxies have a host galaxy of stars that orbit a galactic nucleus, including a supermassive black hole. A radio galaxy also has massive jets and lobes erupting from the galaxy’s center.

Scientists theorize that the jets and lobes are created by the active supermassive black hole in the galaxy center. Some of the material in the accretion disk ends up being moved from the inner region of the accretion disk to the poles, where it’s blasted into space. The exact dynamics of how that happens is a mystery.