The biggest galaxy ever known

The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 is pictured in this undated NASA handout photo obtained by Reuters Jan 10, 2013. The spiral is 522,000 light-years across from the tip of one outstretched arm to the tip of the other, which makes it about five times the size of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. A team of astronomers from the United States, Chile and Brazil has crowned it the largest known spiral, based on archival data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) mission.[Photo/Agencies]