Dusty Sunrise at Core of Galaxy Artist Concept

This artist's concept depicts the current record holder for the most luminous galaxy in the universe. The galaxy, named WISE J224607.57-052635.0, is erupting with light equal to more than 300 trillion suns. It was discovered by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The galaxy is smaller than the Milky Way, yet puts out 10,000 times more energy. Scientists think that a supermassive black hole at the center of this dusty galaxy is busily consuming gaseous material in a colossal growth spurt. As the gas is dragged toward the black hole, it heats up and blasts out visible, ultraviolet and X-ray light. The dust swaddling the galaxy absorbs this light and heats up, radiating longer-wavelength, infrared light. The dust also blocks our view of shorter, visible-light wavelengths, while letting longer-wavelengths through. This is similar to what happens when sunlight streams through our dusty atmosphere, producing a brilliant red sunrise. In fact, more than 99 percent of the light escaping from this dusty galaxy is infrared. As a result, it is much harder to see with optical telescopes. Because light from the galaxy hosting the black hole has traveled 12.5 billion years to rea

Date

2015-05-21

Collection

JPL

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

illustration (NASA artwork)

Need photos for a whole script? Add Find Any Photo to Claude and ask for this one by its id: 15968.