Hubble telescope makes rare discovery in faraway galaxy

Alex Lasker
Updated

The Milky Way is nice and all, but, as NASA recently pointed out, it's no IRAS 16399-0937.

Unlike ours, that galaxy has a megamaser.

The extra fabulous feature is described as, "a process where some components within a galaxy (like gas clouds) are in the right stimulated physical condition to radiate intense energy."

Their brightness is roughly 100 million times that of a plain, ordinary maser, which is the type we do have.

According to NASA, in examining the splendid megamaser using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists learned, "it hosts a double nucleus," and that the one to the north, "...hosts a black hole with some 100 million times the mass of the sun."

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