14 DAY TRIAL // Data delivered by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), an infrared-wavelength space telescope launched back in 2009, helped astronomers track down a previously undocumented galaxy.
The galaxy, (not so imaginatively) named WISE J224607.57-052635.0, is said to be the most luminous cosmic structure of this kind thus far discovered anywhere in the universe.
In a paper published in today's issue of The Astrophysical Journal, the team of astronomers who found it describes it as producing as much infrared light as well over 300 trillion Suns put together would.
Apart from being the most luminous galaxy to date, WISE J224607.57-052635.0 is a rare sight in that it belongs to a class of objects only recently discovered, i.e. extremely luminous infrared galaxies.
Of the light escaping this galaxy, 99% is in the infrared spectrum. Since infrared light is invisible to the naked eye, astronomers could not have found this galaxy without the WISE telescope data.
The galaxy sits at a distance of 12.5 billion light-years from us, which means that NASA's telescope imaged the infrared light produced by it as it was in the distant past, when the cosmos was still young.
The universe as we know it is estimated to have formed 13.8 billion years back. WISE J224607.57-052635.0 was, therefore, imaged when the cosmos was just a tenth its age.
Why is the galaxy producing so much infrared light?
Scientists suspect that WISE J224607.57-052635.0 is coughing out more infrared light than any other galaxy in the known universe because it accommodates for a massive black hole at its core.
Having drawn both gas and matter all around it, this black hole likely started gorging itself and, in doing so, heated the disk of gas and matter encircling it to temperatures of millions of degrees.
This feast produced visible, UV and X-ray light, which in turn heated a dust cloud around the black hole, causing it to radiate the infrared light making this galaxy the most luminous in the universe.
“Supermassive black holes draw gas and matter into a disk around them, heating the disk to roaring temperatures of millions of degrees and blasting out high-energy, visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray light.”
“The light is blocked by surrounding cocoons of dust. As the dust heats up, it radiates infrared light,” scientists at NASA write in a report announcing the discovery of WISE J224607.57-052635.0.
True, other galaxies also host black holes at their core and yet are by no means as luminous as this newly discovered one. Apparently, it all depends on how hungry and big the black holes are.
WISE J224607.57-052635.0, for instance, appears to accommodate for a black hole that is either super big or super hungry, maybe both. Otherwise, it would not be producing this much infrared light.