The ultraviolet range that Galex can see in revealed a wealth of new stars at the galaxy's outer reaches
Astronomers have spotted the largest known spiral galaxy - by accident.
A team was looking through data from the Galaxy Evolution
Explorer (Galex) satellite for star-forming regions around a galaxy
called NGC 6872.But they were shocked to see a vast swathe of ultraviolet light from young stars, indicating that the galaxy is actually big enough to accommodate five of our Milky Way galaxies within it.
The find was reported at the American Astronomical Society meeting in the US.
NGC 6872, a galaxy about 212 million light-years away in the constellation Pavo, was already known to be among the largest spiral galaxies.
Near it sits a lens-shaped or lenticular galaxy called IC 4970, which appears to have crashed through the spiral in recent astronomical times.
