The Brightest Known Galaxy Is Being Torn Apart From Within - Study

A new study suggests that the brightest galaxy in the universe is tearing itself apart.

The W2246-0526 galaxy is located 12.4 billion light-years from Earth and is so tumultuous that researchers believe it is in danger of using up the gas supply that allows it to form stars, writes Christian Science Monitor.

The instability in the galaxy was discovered using an enormous radio telescope in the Atacama desert of Chile and researchers are hopeful that the findings will help us understand more about the fate of galaxies by studying the potential demise of W2246-0526.

"This discovery provides a new insight into the processes through which galaxies evolve" Roberto Assef, co-author of the study and an astronomer with the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, told Christian Science Monitor in an email.

The researchers based their research on work started by NASA, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) -- a telescope consisting of 66 antennae that work together as one.

Prior research has shown that the infrared light produced by the galaxy is equal to the light produced by more than 300 trillion suns.

The ALMA study has allowed researchers to look at the motion created in the interstellar medium of the galaxy - or the gas and wind that passes between its stars.

"It is known that every galaxy is formed having large amounts of interstellar gas from which new stars are constantly born," Dr. Assef told Christian Science Monitor. "Such is the case for the Milky Way, for example, where new generations of stars are constantly being formed. Through their life, galaxies will eventually lose their gas and, hence, lose the ability to form new stars."

But researchers still lack a clear understanding of how this happens.

The data gathered by researchers indicates that a "voraciously feeding supermassive black hole" is present at the center of the W2246-0526 galaxy.

A disk of gas spinning around the supermassive black hole drives the unmatched brightness of the galaxy. As light explodes from the disk, it is absorbed by nearby dust particles before it is hurled into the universe riding the infrared wavelength.

"The powerful infrared energy emitted by the dust then has a direct and violent impact on the entire galaxy, producing extreme turbulence throughout the interstellar medium", Assef said in a press release.

But this information is all thanks to the abilities of ALMA, which provides a detailed view of the universe that has not been seen prior to this point.

The telescope came online in 2013, but it was only last year that the limits of the telescope were reached.

"Only ALMA, with its unparalleled resolution, can allow us to see this object in high definition and fathom such an important episode in the life of this galaxy," Manuel Aravena, also from the Universidad Diego Portales, and co-author of the study, said in a news release.