Mega Black Hole Eats Its Own Galaxy's Spirals!

This is Galaxy M106. From the wide shot it looks listless and lazy. But this dude has surprises!

For one, it has too many spiral arms. This suggests 106 has absorbed other galaxies, their black holes darting to the center so quickly that spiral arms are orphaned and left to slowly join in formation with the ones from M106.

That means its central black hole has grown. A lot.

Look at the size of the galaxy's "eye." Any travel down that bright tunnel will lead to oblivion. The black hole is so big, it may be larger than our entire solar system! 

But the large glowing yellow mass of stars like those surrounding other galaxies' nucleus is gone. It may have fallen victim to the black hole's enormous gravity.

Heh heh..."fallen." Get it?

Most black holes found in the center of galaxies have a hard time digesting all of the material around them. They end up diverting a lot of stuff towards their north and south poles. Since they are spinning and wobbling like a top, the ejected material spirals outward, eventually taking on the familiar shape of a galaxy.

But scientists think the black hole at the center of 106 has grown so big that it's reabsorbing all the galactic material around it. Yikes!

The thing's gravity is ripping normal matter apart so violently that huge amounts of radio waves are generated. If you look closely near the center, you'll see two additional spiral arms. They are softer and in reddish-pink. The top one is clearest and the second one is partially obscured by overhead dark clouds. The radio waves are ionizing everything in their path, revealing their presence by causing the molecules they collide with to glow. I added a filter that makes these more visible, as most of the energy is beyond the visible spectrum.

How cool is that? I've never seen it before.

The two normal arms coming out from the center show strings of exceptionally active hydrogen clouds (called nebula here in the Milky Way). They are generating lots of new stars. There's one nebula on the left that is especially bright. Would love to climb inside and see what's going on there!

Galaxy M106 is almost as old as the universe and is 25 million light years away. It would take 135,000 light years just to cross its width. It's found in our skies within the constellation Canes Venatici.

It's not coming to dine on us. Doppler measurements show t's moving away at 4600 miles per second.

Tonight's image is brought to us by the Tord Gustavsen Trio, playing a dreamy song called Token of Tango.