Star-burst galaxies give birth to hundreds of solar masses' worth of stars each year in short-lived but intense events.
By comparison, our own Milky Way Galaxy on average produces the equivalent of only one Sun-like star per year.
Starburst galaxies generate so much starlight that they should outshine our Galaxy hundreds to thousands of times over, but the enormous quantities of gas fuelling them also contain vast amounts of dust as a result of the frantic star formation.
The dust absorbs much of the visible light, meaning that many of them look quite insignificant in that part of the spectrum, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.
However, the dust is warmed by the surrounding hot stars and re-emits the energy at far-infrared wavelengths.
Using ESA's infrared Herschel space observatory, astronomers measured the temperature and brightness of thousands of dusty galaxies. From these, their star-formation rate could be then calculated.
"Starburst galaxies are the brightest galaxies in the Universe and contribute significantly to cosmic star formation, so it
