Detecting UGC 2885, a giant spiral galaxy, 2.5 times larger than the Milky Way galaxy

The Hubble Space Telescope of the United States Agency for Aeronautics and Space (NASA) has discovered a giant spiral galaxy with the size ever recorded, called UGC 2885.

Galaxy UGC 2885 is located in the northern constellation Perseus, about 232 million light-years from Earth. At the center of this galaxy is a supermassive black hole.

The UGC is about 2.5 times wider than our own Milky Way Galaxy. It contains about one trillion stars, 10 times more than the Milky Way.

NASA nicknamed UGC 2885 the "Godzilla galaxy" (the monster in the film of the same name). Scientists still don't know why the galaxy UGC 2885 is so large.

Scientists have known UGC 2885 for decades. Since the 1980s, astronomer Vera Rubin has measured its rotation orbit to study dark matter.

On January 5, 2020, scientists presented UGC 2885 research results at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Hawaii.

To analyze the central part of the galaxy UGC 2885 as well as the globular cluster population, researchers can use James Webb in the near-field infrared field telescope (WFIRST) in the near future.

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