NASA discovers a cosmic supermum

A cosmic supermum... a galaxy that gives births to more stars in a day than ours does in a year. Astronomers used
NASA's X-Ray telescope to spot this distant galaxy creating about 740 new stars a year. (AP Photo/NASA) Source: AP

INCREDIBLE images from space have emerged after NASA scientists found a cosmic supermum, which gives birth to more stars in a day than our galaxy does in a year.

Astronomers used NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope to spot the distant galaxy creating about 740 stars a year.

By comparison, our Milky Way galaxy spawns about one star each year.


The galaxy is about 5.7 billion light years away.

It is in the centre of a recently discovered cluster of galaxies that give the brightest X-ray glow astronomers have seen.

MIT astronomer Michael McDonald says the galaxy is strange in another way.

It's about 6 billion years old, and this type of galaxy normally doesn't birth stars at that advanced age.

It is by far the biggest creation of stars that astronomers have seen for this kind of galaxy.


Other types, such as colliding galaxies, can produce even more stars, astronomers said.

But this is the size, type and age of galaxy that shouldn't be producing stars at such a rapid pace, said the authors of a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

"It's very extreme," said Harvard University astronomer Ryan Foley, co-author of the study.
"It pushes the boundaries of what we understand."

- news.com.au