He then examined a picture taken by the Hubble space telescope of a galaxy several billion light-years away.

ECONOMIST: Planck-scale physics

The simulation detailed in the new paper is based on a sphere centered on our sun that stretches through the disk of our Milky Way galaxy out to a distance of almost a 1000 light years.

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At a distance of about 400 million light-years, NGC 6240 is a prime example of a massive galaxy in which stars are forming at an exceptionally rapid rate due to a recent collision and subsequent merger of two smaller galaxies.

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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.

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If it was in a distant galaxy, it would have to be travelling at several thousand times the speed of light to move as much as it has.

ECONOMIST: Astronomy

"Light coming toward us from a distant galaxy is bent by the gravity of a lump of matter in the middle, " explained Catherine Heymans of the University of Edinburgh.

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Now that Dr van Paradijs's team, and another led by Kailash Sahu at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, have had time to look properly at the fading point of light, they have noticed a faint fuzz around it that looks as if it could be a galaxy playing host to a dramatic explosion.

ECONOMIST: Astronomy