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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: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday May 25 2015, @02:19PM
In a case like this, however, I don't read the linked-to article, as it's a NASA link, and some time last year NASA started to deliberately hide all their content away from bare-bones browsers (ones with no JS enabled, for example). Even view-source doesn't work:
<article about="/press-release/nasas-wise-spacecraft-discovers-most-luminous-galaxy-in-universe" typeof="sioc:Item foaf:Document" role="article" class="node node--ubernode node--full node--ubernode--full">
<div class="node__content">
</div>
</article>
No NASA, that's not an article, that's a blank div.
Hilariously, while no content is displayed, some of it is hidden inside the headers *multiple times*.
<meta name="dc.description" content="A remote galaxy shining with the light of more than 300 trillion suns has [...]
<meta property="og:description" content="A remote galaxy shining with the light of more than 300 trillion suns has [...]
<meta name="description" content="A remote galaxy shining with the light of more than 300 trillion suns has been [...]
<meta property="twitter:description" content="A remote galaxy shining with the light of more than 300 trillion [...]
Perhaps a US citizen would like to complain about accessibility, all we foreigners can do is ineffectually whine.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Monday May 25 2015, @06:14PM
Regardless of its charter NASA is not, has not ever been, open. It is supposed to be but it is not. Before its official start date there was a report submitted to congress that included the idea of hiding NASA's findings WRT finding alien life or other information that "may trouble" the populace. I do not remember the name of the document but I know where I learned about it. My source is a kook but he does provide evidence for this. It was in one of Richard Hoagland's talks about moon structures BUT he shows the document and names it as well as how to acquire the document today. The document was from a committee of congresscritters and is public information. The talk he gave is some three hours long or so and I lack the time to search for it. No, more honest, I lack the initiative to search for it, I could make the time but am not going to. The presentation is on YouTube if you are interested. Another example is the many military projects that NASA has done that are not public information. Yes they launched a satellite and no they are not able/willing to tell you what the function is. They are not, have never been, open, unfortunately.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @03:47AM
Wait, I thought we were talking about science stuff. I'm surprised you skimmed over the stuff about how NASA covered up all the stuff it found about Cydonia. Oh, and don't forget the blue skies of Mars!!!! All MASSIVE coverups! I've seen the critical thinking skills of Hoagland and company, some of it quite close up, and I wouldn't believe a damn word of anything he says because it is invariably taken out of context, blown out of proportion, or extrapolated well beyond the bounds of credibility.
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday May 26 2015, @12:49PM
You should not that I called him a kook but a relative thought it imperative that I watch so I said I would and am an honorable person. The only thing I gathered from it was the above and that he had some books of images that he horrifically manipulated.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."