NASA Spacecraft Finds Galaxy as Bright as 300 Trillion Suns
What we know about the most luminous galaxy ever discovered by NASA.
— -- A galaxy so bright it shines with the luminosity of 300 trillion suns has been discovered by a NASA spacecraft.
A black hole with an insatiable appetite for gas is believed to be at the center of the galaxy, which NASA has named WISE J224607.57-052635.0. WISE is an acronym for the spacecraft, which is officially known as the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.
"We are looking at a very intense phase of galaxy evolution," Chao-Wei Tsai, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. "This dazzling light may be from the main growth spurt of the galaxy's black hole."
While black holes are common at the center of galaxies, researchers said finding one this distant is incredibly rare. It's believed the light from the brilliant galaxy has traveled 12.5 billion years -- almost as old as the age of the universe itself.
WISE has found several galaxies that are extremely luminous in the infrared spectrum, known as ELIRGs. By determining the masses of their black holes, scientists hope they will stumble upon new insights about the history of the cosmos.