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Largest-Known Spiral Galaxy Discovered

Posted by samzenpus on from the biggest-there-is dept.

littlesparkvt writes "The spectacular barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 has ranked among the biggest stellar systems for decades. Now a team of astronomers from the United States, Chile and Brazil has crowned it the largest-known spiral galaxy, based on archival data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) mission."

2 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. Largest = longest by EdgePenguin · · Score: 4, Informative

    To clarify, this does not mean the most massive spiral galaxy found, it means the longest.

  2. Only a spiral by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 4, Informative

    The largest known elliptical galaxy IC 1101 has a diameter of 6 million light years.