Giant radio galaxy spanning 16 mn light years across named 'the biggest one' ever found

In a massive discovery, astromers have found biggest galaxy ever located about 3 billion light-years away from Earth. Dubbed Alcyoneus, galaxy is a giant rio galaxy and spans across a whopping 16.3 million light-years and has a supermassive black hole at its center which is around 400 million times mass of Sun. While rio galaxies are considered a mystery in alrey mysterious universe, astromers believe that this discovery can provide more clues about such galaxies as well as different mediums drifting in outer . 

What are rio galaxies?

As name suggests, rio galaxies are basically galaxies that emit a high rate of rio waves. Such galaxies are said to consist of a host galaxy, which has a supermassive black hole at its galactic center with star clusters orbiting it. A rio galaxy also has jets and lobes erupting from center and it is se jets and lobes that generates rio waves while interacting with a galactic medium. se jets in turn are produced by supermassive black hole sitting at center of rio galaxy. im above shows lobes of  Alcyoneus galaxy captured by a telescope. 

More about galaxy and its discovery

 Alcyoneus galaxy was discovered using data from Europe-based LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), which is a network of around 20,000 rio antennas located in 52 locations across continent, and NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer telescope. astromers, who have published ir research in journal Astromy & Astrophysics, ted that galaxy is a rmal elliptical galaxy but is around 240 billion times more massive than  Sun. According to study, se parameters have potential to provide more insights into what is driving growth of rio wave-producing lobes. 

astromers believe that galaxy is growing bigger, reason for which is being attributed to a region with density lower than aver it is sitting in. "Beyond geometry, Alcyoneus and its host are suspiciously ordinary: total low-frequency lumisity density, stellar mass and supermassive black hole mass are all lower than, though similar to, those of medial giant rio galaxies,"  researchers write in ir paper as per Science Alert.