The largest known galaxy is wider than 17 Milky Ways

The blue ribbon for largest known galaxy goes to a behemoth that probably grew by cannibalizing its smaller neighbors.

Known as IC 1101, the galaxy’s diameter is estimated to be a whopping 520 kiloparsecs, or nearly 1.7 million light-years, researchers report in a study submitted July 16 to arXiv.org. That’s wider than 17 Milky Ways lined up in a row.

Researchers analyzed the deepest images — or those with the longest exposure time — ever taken of IC 1101, captured in 2022 by the Isaac Newton Telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, located on La Palma in the Canary Islands. That allowed them to identify the galaxy’s faint edge and…

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