SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A remote galaxy shining with the light of more than 300 trillion suns has been discovered using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The galaxy is the most luminous galaxy found to date and belongs to a new class of objects recently discovered by WISE -- extremely luminous infrared galaxies, or ELIRGs.
"We are looking at a very intense phase of galaxy evolution," said Chao-Wei Tsai of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, lead author of a new report appearing in the May 22 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. "This dazzling light may be from the main growth spurt of the galaxy's black hole."
The brilliant galaxy, known as WISE J224607.57-052635.0, may have a behemoth black hole at its belly, gorging itself on gas. Supermassive black holes draw gas and matter into a disk around them, heating the disk to roaring temperatures of millions of degrees and blasting out high-energy, visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray light. The light is blocked by surrounding cocoons of dust. As the dust heats up, it radiates infrared light.
Immense black holes are common at the cores of galaxies, but finding one this big so "far back" in the cosmos is rare. Because light from the galaxy hosting the black hole has traveled 12.5 billion years to reach us, astronomers are seeing the object as it was in the distant past. The black hole was already billions of times the mass of our sun when our universe was only a tenth of its present age of 13.8 billion years.
The new study outlines three reasons why the black holes in the ELIRGs could have grown so massive. First, they may have been born big. In other words, the "seeds," or embryonic black holes, might be bigger than thought possible.
"How do you get an elephant?" asked Peter Eisenhardt, project scientist for WISE at JPL and a co-author on the paper. "One way is start with a baby elephant."
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-wise-spacecraft-discovers-most-luminous-galaxy-in-universe
[Paper]: http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.1751
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @03:36AM
Yes, but you probably know as much science and math as those who comment in the other articles know about economics, sociology, psychology, etc., but that doesn't stop them from espousing spittle-flying, rage-inducing invectives against those who don't share their enlightened opinions. They can't do that here because they'll get bitch-slapped down by those of us who do know a thing or two about these science topics. In those other stories they can feel important, powerful, smart. They can climb their high horse and sneer down on the moral ingrates who aren't smart enough to be on their side.
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday May 26 2015, @12:51PM
A very valid point and why I avoid making authoritative statements when the specialists should be.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."