Turbulent gas emanating from a supermassive black hole is shooting across a galaxy called W2246-0526 and thereby tearing it apart, according to a recent study.
In a galaxy fairly far away from Earth—12.4 billion light years to be exact—is a black hole engaged in what NASA refers to as a "feeding frenzy."
A frenzy that’s stirring up dust across the entirety of its galaxy.
Tanio Diaz-Santos of the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, and the lead author of a new study about the galaxy, notes, "It is like a pot of boiling water being heated up by a nuclear reactor in the center."
The galaxy is called W2246-0526, and is the most luminous known to man.
It's also the first-ever galaxy of its kind known to expel massive amounts of