Cannibal Galaxy the Biggest In the Near Universe 118
The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers have found the most massive galaxy in the near universe: an obese, bloated monster that may tip the cosmic scales at 13 trillion times the mass of the Sun, 20 times the mass of the entire Milky Way. The galaxy, called ESO 146-IG 005, sits at the center of a dense cluster of other (but much more lightweight) galaxies, and grew to its present size by eating the galaxies around it. In fact, the so-far undigested cores of at least five other galaxies are still easily seen in the cannibal's nucleus. Astronomers are having difficulty pinning down the galaxy's exact mass, but it's clearly the biggest bruiser within 1.5 billion light years of home."
In Other Words: The Cannibal Galaxy (Score:1, Informative)
is a botnet !
Thanks in advance.
Yours In Astrakhan,
K. Trout
It's not that bad (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And in the opposite corner... (Score:3, Informative)
The neutrino! Massless and fast. Folks, this should be quite a match.
Neutrinos [wikipedia.org] have mass.
Re:Black Galaxy? (Score:3, Informative)
Quite likely pretty much all galaxies will be "a galaxy of black holes" at some point, simply because virtually everything else will decay [wikipedia.org] in the meantime (and long before black holes themselves will decay). Some models [wikipedia.org] even have the possibility that whole Universe will turn into a singularity (though not really of the same kind as a black hole)
As for "giant one with an event Horizon as big as a galaxy", you're unlikely to find enough mass in one place for something like that to form (nevermind the unlikeness of all that mass collapsing into a black hole)
do you hear the maddening beating of vile drums? (Score:2, Informative)
omg! they found azathoth!!!!
Outside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth
Re:Black Galaxy? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That would be 1.5 billion light years.... (Score:3, Informative)
True, but technically uninteresting. If you are standing 100 meters away from me, then technically I never actually see "you," I see "you, 333 nanoseconds ago."
In order for there to be a past, there has to be a "then" and a "now," and these are relative to your frame of reference. Yes, it's 1.5 billion years in the "past," but it's unimportant because there's no possibility of ever "catching up" to it. What we see right now, for all useful purposes, could be said to be happening "now."
Ah geez, let's just go take a few shots.
Re:That would be 1.5 billion light years.... (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong.
In our light cone this is how the galaxy appears now. There is no concept of "now" outside our light cone, as much as intuitive Newtonian physics would like that to be true.