NASA astronomers identified the most luminous galaxy known to exist in the universe, shining with the brightness of about 300 trillion suns.

According to Xinhua News, NASA used its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope to find the galaxy, dubbed WISE J224607.57-052635.0. In a study published in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers said one possibility for the ultra-luminosity could be a supermassive black hole at its heart.

"We are looking at a very intense phase of galaxy evolution," study lead author Chao-Wei Tsai, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said in a press release. "This dazzling light may be from the main growth spurt of the galaxy's black hole."

The black hole could be pulling gas, dust and other matter toward it, heating it up as they approach. The dust collects into individual pockets and, when they heat up, radiate infrared light.

The astronomers called these kinds of spatial objects extremely luminous infrared galaxies and they are trying to determine who the black holes got so big.

"The massive black holes in ELIRGs could be gorging themselves on more matter for a longer period of time," study co-author Andrew Blain, of University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, said in the release. "It's like winning a hot-dog-eating contest lasting hundreds of millions of years."

With a few hypotheses in mind, the researchers' next task will be to explain the growth of the black holes at the center of these super-luminous galaxies.

"Another way for a black hole to grow this big is for it to have gone on a sustained binge, consuming food faster than typically thought possible," Tsai said. "This can happen if the black hole isn't spinning that fast.

"We found in a related study with WISE that as many as half of the most luminous galaxies only show up well in infrared light."