Incredibly bright galaxy is destroying itself

A previously discovered bright galaxy—indentified as a quasar 12.4 billion light-years away—is so turbulent with astrophysical activity that it may chuck its entire cache of star-forming gas observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), according to a Phys.org report.

The contingent of scientists used the ALMA to trace for the first time the motion of the galaxy’s interstellar activity, essentially the gas and dust between the stars. According to Tanio Díaz-Santos of the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, the galaxy is “so chaotic that it is ripping itself apart.”

Previous studies conducted with NASA and its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) determined the galaxy, named W2246-0526, is emitting such intense infrared light that it’s equated to approximately 350 trillion suns. The evidence proposes that is an obscured quasar or a distant galaxy dissembling a supermassive black hole behind a thick veil of dust. The galaxy’s brilliance is attributed to a diminutive but intense energetic disk of gas that is being superheated as it spirals around the black hole. This bright emission is then absorbed by the surrounding dust.

Roberto Assef, an astronomer with the Universidad Diego Portales and leader of the ALMA observing team said, “These properties make this object a beast in the infrared,” and adds, “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.”

Astronomers are even suggesting that the bright turbulence is at least 100 times more luminous than the entire galaxy combined as opposed to other quasars, which are dimmer. This pressurized radiation exerts tremendous pressure on the galaxy in a devasting measure. “We suspected that this galaxy was in a transformative stage of its life because of the enormous amount of infrared energy discovered with WISE,” said Peter Eisenhardt with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Now ALMA has shown us that the raging furnace in this galaxy is making the pot boil over.”