Giant galaxy giant galaxy

1991/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronomia

American astronomers have just found a giant galaxy, some thirty times bigger than the Milky Way. It has a length of 300 million light years and is very luminous.

This gigantic galaxy, located at the center of a group of galaxies called Abel 2029, emits a quarter of the light of the whole.

Astronomers Stephen Boughn, Jeffrey Kuhn and Juan Uson have discovered this galaxy with a camera very sensitive to weak lights at the Kitt Peak observatory telescope in Arizona. Sixteen photographs have formed a giant galaxy like a mosaic and, according to Professor Uson, the hidden matter still between galaxies is ten times more abundant than the visible one.