Latest Messier 82 Stories

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Shockwaves originating from the central starburst region of galaxy Messier 82 (M82) are most likely the source of bright clouds within a “cap” of gas clouds located some 40,000 light years away, astronomers have discovered. Kyoto University’s Dr. Kazuya Matsubayshi and an international team of colleagues observed the nearby starburst galaxy, which is located approximately 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa...

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer has captured a new view of two companion galaxies -- a somewhat tranquil spiral beauty and its rambunctious partner blazing with smoky star formation.The unlikely pair, named Messier 81 and Messier 82, got to know each other a lot better during an encounter that occurred a few hundred million years ago. As they swept by each other, gravitational interactions triggered new bursts of star formation. In the case of Messier 82, also known as the Cigar...

A new Chandra X-ray Observatory image of Messier 82, or M82, shows the result of star formation on overdrive. M82 is located about 12 million light years from Earth and is the nearest place to us where the conditions are similar to those when the Universe was much younger with lots of stars forming.M82 is a so-called starburst galaxy, where stars are forming at rates that are tens or even hundreds of times higher than in a normal galaxy. The burst of star birth may be caused by a close...

New evidence from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton strengthens the case that two mid-sized black holes exist close to the center of a nearby starburst galaxy. These "survivor" black holes avoided falling into the center of the galaxy and could be examples of the seeds required for the growth of supermassive black holes in galaxies, including the one in the Milky Way.For several decades, scientists have had strong evidence for two distinct classes of black hole:...

Nearby galaxies undergoing a furious pace of star formation also emit lots of gamma rays, say astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Two so-called "starburst" galaxies, plus a satellite of our own Milky Way galaxy, represent a new category of gamma-ray-emitting objects detected both by Fermi and ground-based observatories."Starburst galaxies have not been accessible in gamma rays before," said Fermi team member Seth Digel, a physicist at SLAC National...

Nearly 100 years ago, scientists detected the first signs of cosmic rays - subatomic particles (mostly protons) that zip through space at nearly the speed of light. The most energetic cosmic rays hit with the punch of a 98-mph fastball, even though they are smaller than an atom. Astronomers questioned what natural force could accelerate particles to such a speed. New evidence from the VERITAS telescope array shows that cosmic rays likely are powered by exploding stars and stellar...

ESA's space-borne X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, has carried out an exclusive observation of the galaxy Messier 82, for the "˜100 Hours of Astronomy' cornerstone project for the International Year of Astronomy 2009.The observatory was featured in the "˜Around the World in 80 Telescopes' live webcast last week. This European space telescope has been studying the sky in X-ray, optical and ultraviolet wavelengths simultaneously, since its launch in December 1999.The image is composed of...

To celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's 16 years of success, the two space agencies involved in the project, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), are releasing this image of the magnificent starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82). This mosaic image is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of M82. The galaxy is remarkable for its bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds, and fiery-looking plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out of its central regions. Throughout the galaxy's center,...

JPL -- Where there's smoke, there's fire - even in outer space. A new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a burning hot galaxy whose fiery stars appear to be blowing out giant billows of smoky dust. The galaxy, called Messier 82, or the "Cigar galaxy," was previously known to host a hotbed of young, massive stars. The new Spitzer image reveals, for the first time, the "smoke" surrounding those stellar fires. "We've never seen anything like...