astronomers have discovered what may be the universe's version of Shrek a giant ogre of
a galaxy so large and scary that cosmic villagers surely run away at first sight
they've even named it Alcyoneus after a greek mythical giant who fought Hercules and whose name
literally means mighty ass at 16.3 million light years wide the Alcyoneus galaxy has a diameter 160
times wider than the milky way and four times that of the previous title holder ic1101
welcome to Factnomenal in today's video we fly across the cosmos to see the largest
radio galaxy ever discovered and how its nature is befuddling astronomers the world over
Alcyoneus is a whale of an oddity a giant in a universe of giants just how large is it
time to get out your measuring sticks because this is gonna get tricky
that's quite big let's talk about parsecs in the first star wars movie that some blasphemously call
a new hope Han Solo boasts that the millennium falcon may the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs
but this makes no sense as a parsec is unit of measurement not time either way a parsec measures
3.26 light years and the nearest star to earth besides the sun of course is Proxima Centauri
about 1.3 parsecs away but we need to move on to megaparsecs which measure 3.26 million light years
our nearest galaxy andromeda is less than 0.9 megaparsecs away so a megaparsec is huge Alcyoneus
for perspective is at least 5.04 megaparsecs wide if han solo had understood parsecs or
units of distance and not time he would know that this giant radio galaxy measures 400 000 times as
wide as his legendary kessel run for even more perspective ic 1101 the previous record holder
now relegated to second place is not even two measly megaparsecs wide a runt by comparison
picture this the Alcyoneus galaxies roughly 3 billion light years from earth while our
friendly neighborhood andromeda galaxy is by comparison a miniscule 2.5 million light years
away andromeda is also the furthest object humans can see with the naked eye and when you see it
you're witnessing light that has started its journey to your backyard long before modern
humans ever existed to see andromeda you must give your eyes quite a while to adjust to the dark sky
perhaps an hour and then you should be able to detect a faint and fuzzy patch of light in the
constellation pegasus ah there it is andromeda however if the radio signals we received from
alcianeus were light instead it would be as large as the moon in our night sky and 3 billion light
years away as the researchers note astronomical pictures are taken from a single viewpoint
earth and therefore don't contain depth as a result scientists can only measure a part of
the radial galaxy length a low estimate of the total length but even that lower bound
is comparable to 100 milky ways in a row so yes our cosmic shrek is mind-bogglingly huge
lofar or the low frequency array is a network of around twenty thousand radio antennas in europe
that together create the world's largest radio telescope laden university phd student martine
oe and his phd supervisors were studying the distribution of cosmic web material filaments
when they stumbled across a spectacular discovery they called a stroke of luck and it was hiding in
plain sight in the lynx constellation this stroke of luck has already disproved some long-held ideas
about limits to growth of radio galaxies and very likely will shed light on mechanisms that
drive radio galaxy growth but before these it first set in motion a massive international search
by astronomers in the netherlands uk and france to collect the radio light from this discovery
why radio light and not light most if not all large galaxies have supermassive black holes
in their centers and matters pulled into these monsters in a pattern not entirely different
from the water in your bathroom water does not simply pour straight down a drain but as it
gets closer its angular velocity increases and it swirls the earth's rotation influences water with
the coriolis effect at least slightly though in reality physicists say the swirling is more of an
accidental twist caused by the irregularities in the starting flow either way when matters dragged
into a black hole's event horizon that lovely point of no return when you need not worry about
what you're going to wear tomorrow it circles like that water in your sink and some of it is
violently ejected once matter crosses the event horizon it's lights out but before that point the
black hole shoots astrophysical jets in opposite directions from the galactic center or active
galactic nuclei traveling at almost the speed of light the material heats and dissolves into plasma
which then emits radio light and this radio light is detectable by lofar scientists were then able
to reprocess a set of already existing images in a way that subtle patterns were suddenly obvious
and there it was that's how this ridiculously large but dim alcianeous galaxy was found
despite alciania's mind-boggling distance from earth the giant looms as large as
the moon in the sky an indication the structure has to have a record length
the fact that the radio eyes of the lofar telescope only saw the giant
just now is because the plumes are relatively faint by reprocessing a set of existing images
in such a way that subtle patterns stood out the scientists were suddenly able to spot the giant
a giant hiding in otherwise plain sight right in the middle of our sky like finding a gigantic
but invisible needle in a haystack our own milky way has at least one plume streaming
from near its center outwards since we're residents here and as of yet have not left
the galaxy for a better vantage point to see such things they are notably difficult to detect
alcianeus is simply the largest known structure in the universe of galactic origin how this
interstellar ogre grew so ridiculously large is a mystery astronomers are trying to decipher
despite initial suspicions that alcianea's supermassive black hole must be unusually large
even for something called supermassive data from lofar indicates it's relatively normal compared
to other radio galaxies if not small meaning if all it took was a black hole of the size of the
one in alcianeus to produce a comparably enormous radial galaxy there would be an incredible number
of them and there aren't so out of a galaxy of quite limited density what's causing these
tremendous sin baffling plumes clearly as oa notes there are incredible and thus far unknown
processes at work in alcianeus galaxies are not just peaceful collections of stars and dust
but many feature violent spectacular processes like glowing jet streams and plumes that reach
far out into the depths of space many millions of light years or hundreds of times their size
astronomers believe that alcianeus may offer new clues as they continue to unravel the structure of
the universe particularly about the cosmic web this is the incredibly complex and gargantuan
scaffolding network of invisible gas and dark matter woven through the cosmos some believe
these colossal filaments are the reason just about everything in the universe spins have you ever
wondered about that the plumes of alcianeus are so large so rarefied that chances are high they'll be
used to learn more about the cosmic web that's so hard to see but connects the universe if only we
could visit and see our cosmic shrek up close and while it would be a difficult trip to make
berlin has a sculpture of the mythological giant at its famous pergamon museum Alcyoneus that is
not shrek so what do you think about having a new champion of the universe for galactic structures
does Alcyoneus hold promise for exciting new discoveries about the enchanting but elusive
cosmic web please tell us in the comments and as always thank you for watching Factnomenal