A team of astronomers used the Webb Space Telescope to survey the starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82). Located 12 million light years away in constellation Ursa Major, the galaxy is relatively compact in size, but is home to a frenzy of star formation activity at a rate 10 times faster than our own Milky Way galaxy.
M82 has been observed by both NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and @NASA Hubble, but Webb’s infrared perspective allows us a closer look at the physical conditions that foster the formation of new stars.
In the first image, a section of Messier 82 as imaged by the Webb Telescope. An edge-on spiral starburst galaxy with a bright white, glowing core, set against the black background of space. A white band of the edge-on disk extends from lower left to upper right. Dark brown tendrils of dust are heavily threaded through this band. Many white points in various sizes (stars or star clusters) are scattered across the image, but are most heavily concentrated toward the center. Just outside the bright core and the brown tendrils of dust, the surrounding mass of stars appears to glow faintly blueish-purple. Toward the center, tiny specks in green denote concentrations of iron, most of which are supernova remnants. Small red patches signify regions where molecular hydrogen is being lit up by a nearby star’s radiation.
In the second image, instead, Webb took at slightly longer near-infrared wavelength which shows the lighter brown tendrils of galactic wind caused by the rapid rate of star formation threaded through the galaxy’s center. Additionally, there are many clumpy, red filaments extending vertically above and below the galaxy’s plane. Webb traced its structure via emission from small, dusty chemical molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Alberto Bolatto (UMD)
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