The Galaxy That Got Too Big

We can’t help ourselves—we’re crazy about big things. We’ll venture miles out of our way to see the world’s “largest” rifle (33.3 feet long; Ishpeming, Michigan), high-heeled shoe (6.1 feet tall; New York City), or ball of twine (7.8 million feet unraveled; Cawker City, Kansas).

And for what? Spectacle aside, the largest things rarely make much sense. It’s harder, not easier, to fry a tasty egg with the largest frying pan, or drive a screw with the largest screwdriver.

In nature, too, size often comes with a cost.

The largest element is the shortest-lived

In the chemical world, scale defines identity: Add a proton to the nucleus of an atom, and a whole new element emerges. But for super-heavy elements, a very large atomic number means a very