Largest known galaxy in our universe

Image by Fernando de Gorocica Via  Wikimedia commons

IC 1101 is the largest massive known galaxy in our universe. It was discovered by astronomer Frederick William Herschel I in 1790 . And same as Andromeda, it was also studied as a nebula, until Erwin Hubble in 1932 discoveries that they all are galaxies.

It is about 1.04 billion light-years from Earth, having 100 trillion stars. For comparison, i want to tell you that our galaxy - Milkyway has 300 to 400 billion stars. Most of the stars in IC 1101 looks like metal-rich and only seven billion years older than the sun, which makes it appears golden yellow in color. It is also claimed the most luminous galaxy and having one of an enormous black hole in the universe.

IC 1101 is an elliptical galaxy(sometimes, it is also thought of like a galaxy intermediate between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy). It has a diameter of 6 million light-years, whereas our Milky Way has just 100,000 light-years in diameter. 

IC 1101 is found in Abell 2029 galaxy cluster. And in the earth night sky, you can track this in the Virgo constellation.

Read - What is spiral galaxy ?