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Just over a century ago, our galaxy was considered the largest. Actually, others simply did not know, although astronomers did not doubt their existence.
Eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant was one of the first to suggest that the Milky Way was not the only galaxy in the universe. Kant coined the term island universe to describe the galaxy.
With the development of technology, with the advent of powerful telescopes, it became obvious that the Milky Way is negligible when compared with others. How much larger they are, what they are called and where they are, we will tell you today in this collection.
Interesting fact: if galaxies were reduced to the size of apples, neighboring galaxies would be only a few meters apart. Relative proximity means that galaxies sometimes merge.
We present you a rating of the 10 largest galaxies in the universe.
10 NGC 3842
Records are set to be broken, a rule that applies not only to football games and pie-eating contests, but also to supermassive black holes.
For example, in 2010, astronomers announced a new record in the black hole “weight” contest: a hulk found at the core of the galaxy M87 weighs more than 6 billion times more than the Sun. Just a year later, they updated this record, and twice at once.
One of the new record holders – NGC 3842: a giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices. Its mass is almost 10 billion more than the weight of the Sun.
9. NGC 4889 or Coma B
According to estimates by astronomers (who are increasingly wrong), the supermassive black hole in NGC 4889 has a mass of 21 billion times that of the Sun. In addition, it has an event horizon with a diameter of about 130 billion km. By comparison, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way has a mass of only four times that of the Sun.
Astronomers say that a black hole NGC 4889 is currently at rest. She is resting after years of consuming stars and clouds of dust. Astronomers cannot directly observe a black hole, but its mass can be determined indirectly.
Astronomers used instruments from the Keck II Observatory and the Gemini North Telescope to measure the speed of stars moving around the center of NGC 4889. These speeds were then used to measure the mass of the supermassive black hole.
8. NGC 1275 or Perseus A
NGC 1275 is a giant elliptical galaxy located in the center of the Perseus cluster of galaxies. The images show dust lanes from a separate spiral galaxy. It lies partially in front of NGC 1275 and has been completely destroyed by tidal forces within the Perseus cluster of the galaxy.
The images show several bright filaments of blue newborn stars. By observing the filamentous structure, astronomers were able to estimate the strength of the magnetic field for the first time. Using this information, they figured out how extragalactic magnetic fields supported the structure of the filaments against collapse caused by gravitational forces or the absorption of the surrounding cluster of galaxies over their lifetime of 100 million years.
This was made possible by images taken with NASA/ESA’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in July and August 2006.
7. Phoenix Cluster Central Galaxy
Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in space, held together by gravity and made up of hundreds or even thousands of galaxies encased in hot gas and invisible dark matter.
Galaxies contain the largest known supermassive black holes at their cluster centers. In the case of a cluster Phoenix The black hole at its core has a mass equivalent to 5,8 billion suns.
6. NGC 262 or Markarian 348
Type 2 Seyfert Galaxy Markarian 348 (NGC 262) is an early-type normal disk galaxy (SO/a or Sa) surrounded by a very large HI shell. It has a diameter of 1,3 billion light years, which means it is 13 times the size of the Milky Way.
5. 3C 348 or Hercules A
Located approximately two billion light years away, the yellowish elliptical galaxy Hercules A looks pretty normal in the visible wavelengths of light seen by the Hubble telescope.
The galaxy harbors a central black hole with a mass of 2,5 billion solar masses, which is 1000 times more massive than the black hole in our Milky Way.
But the innocuous-looking galaxy, also called 3C 348, has long been known as the brightest radio-emitting object in the constellation Hercules. Emitting radio waves nearly a billion times greater than our Sun, the galaxy is one of the brightest extragalactic radio sources in the entire sky.
4. IC 1101
IC 1101 – an object in deep space, which is located at a distance of about 1 light years in the constellation Virgo. As a landmark, the closest naked-eye star to an elliptical galaxy is 040 Serpentis. To avoid confusion, the nearest star is one that can be seen without binoculars or a telescope in the 000D plane, regardless of distance.
Although visible stars can reach 6,5 in magnitude, the dimmest star for that would be 6,0. Its visual (visible) brightness is 14,73 magnitudes with an apparent measurement of 1,2×0,6. In other words, it cannot be seen with the naked eye from Earth and you need a telescope to view IC 1101.
The radius of the galaxy is 1 light years, or in other words, its diameter is 956 light years. It will take the spacecraft 900 years, traveling at the speed of light, to get from one side to the other.
3. UGC 9555
This galaxy is directly in the trinity of galaxies called the system UGC 9555. The cluster is located at a distance of 820 million light years from Earth. Everything near it in any direction is elements of the grander galaxy clusters MSPM 02158.
British astronomers discovered a lot of new information there by studying the cluster using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) instrument. This is a pretty good telescope, although it is morally and technically outdated.
As part of the project, MSSS scientists observe what is happening in deep space in the frequency range from 119 to 158 MHz. The check is not carried out over the entire frequency range, but in small increments in 2 MHz bands.
After the last study of the received radio frequency radiation, the surprisingly large size of the GRG radio galaxy was discovered. In size, it is approximately equal to the diameter of 2,56 MPC – it is just a huge “piece” of stellar material.
2. 3C 236
Radio galaxy 3C 236 belongs to the FR II class and is truly huge: the total size of its radio structure is 15 million light years. If in the case of IC 1101, the spacecraft would need almost 4 million light years to fly around it, then it will not fly around 3C 236 even for 15 million light years.
1. J1420-0545
Not so long ago, scientists announced the discovery of a giant radio galaxy called J1420-0545: FR type II radio source with an angular size of 17,4, identified with an optical galaxy at z = 0,3067.
Thus, the predicted linear size is 4,69 Mpc. This makes it larger than 3C 236, which is the largest double radio source known to date.