The brightest galaxy ever discovered aims to cannibalize at least three of its smaller neighbors, according to a study

The brightest galaxy ever discovered in the universe is stealing a massive mass of mass from its three smaller neighbors, a new study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the United States has revealed. Diego Portales University in Chile.

The galaxy, nicknamed W2246-0526 (full name, WISE J224607.55-052634.9), is the brightest galaxy known to the universe and was discovered in 2015 by the wide-area infrared space explorer from NASA.

According to NASA, this galaxy is not the largest nor the most massive known in the universe, but it's a good galaxy the brightest, emitting 350 trillion times the brightness of the Sun. This would seem to be the brightest galaxy if all galaxies are placed at the same distance from us.

In this new study, astronomers observed W2246-0526 in Chile with Atacama's large micrometers / submillimeters network (Chile) and discovered that the galaxy was pulling separate dust trails from three smaller neighboring galaxies.

"We knew from previous data that there were three galaxies companions, but there was no evidence of interactions between these neighbors and the central source," said Tanio Diaz-Santos of Diego Portales University in Santiago de Chile, lead author of the study. .

"We were not looking for cannibalistic behavior and we were not expecting that, but this deep dive with the ALMA observatory is very clear."

According to scientists, W2246-0526 falls under the category of hot galogies hidden by dust (Hot DOG) – a particular type of particularly bright quasar. Most quasars are thought to draw some of their fuel from external sources.

According to scientists, it is not the first astronomers who observe a behavior of galactic cannibalism. In the past, scientists have spotted several galaxies that merged with or grew to nearby material. However, W2246-0526 is the furthest galaxy that has been considered a material accumulating from many sources.

Another notable feature of W2246-0526 is that the light that emanates takes about 12.4 billion years to reach the Earth, which means that astronomers actually observe this galaxy as it was when the Universe was was only one-tenth of his current age.

The results of the study are published in a journal Science.