• Question: what is the biggest galaxy ever

    Asked by holly curran to Andrew on 18 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      I’m not sure what the biggest galaxy is ever I have to say – plus I’m not sure how you measure “biggest” – is it the biggest side to side (i.e. occupies the most space), or is it the most massive (the one that has the most “stuff” in it). The two aren’t necessarily the same! Then there is the brightest – after all, the brighter they are, the ‘bigger’ they look to us when observing them!

      A quick wikipedia search reveals the following: The most massive galaxy is the catchily named ESO-146-IG 05, which I suspect was the 146th object measured in 2005 by the European Space Observatory. It apparently has a mass of 30,000,000,000,000 times greater than that of our sun!

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