Amid a site teeming with new and young stars lies an intricate substructure.
Amid a site teeming with new and young stars lies an intricate substructure.
A team of astronomers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to survey the starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82). Located 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, this galaxy is relatively compact in size but hosts a frenzy of star formation activity. For comparison, M82 is sprouting new stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way galaxy.
Led by Alberto Bolatto at the University of Maryland, College Park, the team directed Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument toward the starburst galaxy’s center, attaining a closer look at the physical conditions that foster the formation of new stars.
“M82 has garnered a variety of observations over the years because it can be considered as the prototypical starburst galaxy,” said Bolatto, lead author of the study. “Both NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have observed this target. With Webb’s size and resolution, we can look at this star-forming galaxy and see all of this beautiful, new detail.”
Read more at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Image: On the left is the starburst galaxy M82 as observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 2006. The small box at the galaxy’s core corresponds to the area captured so far by the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The red filaments as seen by Webb are the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emission, which traces the shape of the galactic wind. In the Hubble image, light at .814 microns is colored red, .658 microns is red-orange, .555 microns is green, and .435 microns is blue (filters F814W, F658N, F555W, and F435W, respectively). In the Webb image, light at 3.35 microns is colored red, 2.50 microns is green, and 1.64 microns is blue (filters F335M, F250M, and F164N, respectively).
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Bolatto (University of Maryland)
