Astronomers working with the Hubble Space Telescope have published an image of the heart of the galaxy M82. It is also known by the nickname Cigar Galaxy.
M82 is our neighbor: it is located 12 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the Milky Way. For a long time, it was believed to be an irregular galaxy. But in 2005, astronomers discovered its spiral arms.
The Cigar Galaxy is very active. It is undergoing a burst of star formation and is forming stars 10 times faster than our Milky Way. Captured in the Hubble photo, its center is home to many young and bright stars. Their light is partially blocked by clouds and red-black bands consisting of dust and gas.
The intense period of explosive star formation that grips this galaxy led to the appearance of superstellar clusters in its center. Each contains hundreds of thousands of stars and is brighter than a typical star cluster. Researchers used the Hubble Telescope to focus on these massive clusters and figure out how they form and evolve.
In the past, Hubble has photographed M82 many times. The new image differs from previous ones in that it contains data from the high-resolution channel of the ACS camera, installed on the telescope in 2002. It is one of its three sub-instruments. Over five years of operation, the high-resolution channel has provided highly detailed data on densely populated stellar environments, such as the centers of galaxies with explosive star formation, as M82. Unfortunately, in 2007, it broke down due to a malfunction.
Earlier, we talked about how the Hubble Space Telescope photographed a “tangled” galaxy.
According to Esahubble
