Blurs

There are galaxies so large that comparing them with the Milky Way almost stops making sense. IC 1101 is one of them. For years, astronomers have known that this enormous galaxy sits at the heart of the Abell 2029 galaxy cluster, roughly a billion light-years away. It has often been described as one of the largest galaxies known. But there was a problem. Nobody could confidently say where the galaxy actually ended. Its outer regions are extraordinarily faint, gradually blending into the surrounding light of the galaxy cluster. Now, new ultra-deep observations have pushed that boundary much farther out. And the result is extraordinary. IC 1101 appears to stretch for approximately 1.7 million light-years. That is around 17 times the diameter of the Milky Way's main stellar disk. And the really interesting part? It may still be growing. A galaxy at the centre of everything IC 1101 isn't an ordinary galaxy drifting through space. It is a brightest cluster galaxy, or BCG. It sits ne...