PASADENA >> Astronomers from Caltech have discovered a previously unknown variety of rare, ultra-massive spiral galaxies dubbed “super spirals” that are causing them to rethink the scale of the universe.

With as much as 10 times the mass of the spiral galaxy we call home, the Milky Way, and up to 14 times brighter, the arms of the newly-discovered galaxies can span 440,000 light-years, dwarfing the 100,000 light-year diameter of our own galaxy, JPL spokesman Adam Hadhazy announced Thursday in a written statement.

By scouring the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, managed by the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA, scientists stumbled upon the discovery, which has the potential to reshape the way astronomers think of the shape of galaxies in our universe, according to Caltech astrophysicist Patrick Ogle, who authored a paper on the findings in The Astrophysical Journal along with Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) Executive Director George Helou, Lauranne Lanz of IPAC, and Cal State Los Angeles undergraduate student and IPAC intern Cyril Nader.

“We have found a previously unrecognized class of spiral galaxies that are as luminous and massive as the biggest, brightest galaxies we know of,” Ogle said. “It’s as if we have just discovered a new land animal stomping around that is the size of an elephant but had shockingly gone unnoticed by zoologists.”

Analysis of the huge amounts of ultraviolet and mid-infrared light emitted from the super spirals suggests they are creating new stars at “breakneck” pace of up to 30 times the rate of the Milky Way. The super-spirals were previously thought to be ordinary-sized spiral galaxies at a much closer distance to our own Milky Way, according to JPL.

But the new review of data indicated the galaxies are, in fact, much larger and much farther away than previously thought.

More puzzling, these galaxies simply shouldn’t exist, based on science’s current understanding of the universe.

“According to established astrophysical theory, spiral galaxies should not be able to attain any of these feats because their size and star-making potential are limited,” Hadhazy said. Galaxies of this size were expected to be found in elliptical shapes, rather than spirals.

The researchers are already seeking answers to the newly-raised questions.

They noted that four of the 53 super spirals observed by the Caltech scientists contained two galactic nuclei, rather than just one.

“Double nuclei, which look like two egg yolks frying in a pan, are a telltale sign of two galaxies having just merged together,” according to Hadhazy. “Conventionally, mergers of spiral galaxies are destined to become bloated, elliptical galaxies. Yet Ogle and colleagues speculate that a special merger involving two, gas-rich spiral galaxies could see their pooled gases settle down into a new, larger stellar disk — presto, a super spiral.”

The new research, “could fundamentally change our understanding of the formation and evolution of the most massive galaxies. We have much to learn from these newly identified galactic leviathans.”

And the new revelations came not from fresh observations, but from a painstaking analysis of previously collected information in JPL’s database of more than 100 million galaxies. And many more important discoveries could be waiting to be found in the galactic database.

“Remarkably, the finding of super spiral galaxies came out of purely analyzing the contents of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, thus reaping the benefits of the careful, systematic merging of data from many sources on the same galaxies,” Helou said. “NED is surely holding many more such nuggets of information, and it is up to us scientists to ask the right questions to bring them out.”