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20 Januari 2016 17:12

The brightest known galaxy is falling into Armageddon

This cumulating energy happens due to activities in the supermassive black hole at the midpoint of the galaxy. Retno Wulandari
© 2016 NASA/JPL-Caltech

Brilio.net/en - One of brightest galaxies ever known, the W2246-0526, is being torn apart by a supermassive black hole. The power from the hole is so mighty that the resulting energy stirs gas across the galaxy.

According to BBC, Monday (18/1), the vivid brilliance of the galaxy, situated a mere 12.5 billion light years from Earth, was discovered in 2015 using data from NASAs Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

Sadly, the bright W2246-0526 is falling into Armageddon, as its ripping itself apart, according to a new study. The results of the study have been published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"The momentum and energy of the particles of light deposited in the gas are so great that they are pushing the gas out in all directions," says Roberto Assef of Diego Portales University in Santiago, Chile.

The galaxy accommodates huge amounts of energy, and the researchers correlate it to a pot of boiling water being heated by a nuclear reactor at its center.

This cumulating energy happens due to activities in the supermassive black hole at the midpoint of the galaxy. Its great gravitational force attacks all other matter and gas nearby. But not all of this material gets sucked into the black hole. Instead, some of them form an "accretion disk", a halo made from gas and other matter.

This disk causes the galaxy to burn hotter than 300 trillion Milky Ways Suns, thereby causing great turbulence across the entire galaxy.

It is not yet known whether the gas that is being pushed across will eventually leave the galaxy, or be absorbed by the black hole. If it does leave, astronomers will be able to see the accumulation disk in all its blinding details. Currently, it is buried in dust.

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