Astronomers have discovered a galaxy located regarding 3 billion light-years away, called “Alcyoneus”, a giant radio galaxy measuring 5 megaparsecs in space. It is 16.3 million light-years long and forms the largest known structure of a galaxy.
This discovery highlights a better understanding not only of giant radio galaxies, but of the intergalactic medium drifting into the vast voids of space.
Giant radio galaxies are another mystery in a world full of mystery. It consists of a host galaxy (the group of stars orbiting around a galactic core that contains a supermassive black hole), as well as massive jets erupting from the galactic center.
These jets interact with the intergalactic medium, acting as a synchrotron to accelerate electrons that produce a radio emission.
The researchers confirmed that the discovered galaxy is elliptical in the filaments of the cosmic web, and its mass is regarding 240 billion times the mass of the sun, with a supermassive black hole in its center equivalent to 400 million times the mass of the sun.
