Cigar Galaxy Blazes With Star Births at 10x the Milky Way’s Pace

Messier 82 blazes with star-forming power, producing superclusters that outshine ordinary ones. Thanks to Hubble and Webb, we can now see its turbulent beauty in extraordinary detail, including rare views from Hubble’s High Resolution Channel.

Star-Powered Heart of the Cigar Galaxy

What lies hidden within the thick, dusty clouds of this neighboring galaxy? At its center is the energetic core of Messier 82 (M82), more commonly known as the Cigar Galaxy. Situated about 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major (The Great Bear), it ranks among the closest galaxies to us. In this featured Hubble Space Telescope image, intricate details reveal brilliant stars shining through sculpted clouds, clumps, and streams of dust and gas.

The Cigar Galaxy is densely packed with stars, many of which are concealed by the striking clouds captured in the image. This galaxy produces new stars at a rate 10 times greater than the Milky Way, earning it the classification of a starburst galaxy. The ongoing burst of star formation has created enormous super star clusters concentrated in its central region. Each of these clusters contains hundreds of thousands of stars and shines far brighter than typical star groups. Using Hubble’s powerful imaging capabilities, astronomers have examined these colossal clusters closely to study how they emerge and change over time.

Telescopes Turn Toward M82

Hubble’s views of the Cigar Galaxy have been featured before, both as a previous Picture of the Week in 2012 and as an image released in celebration of Hubble’s 16th birthday. The James Webb Space Telescope has also turned toward the Cigar Galaxy, producing infrared images in 2024 and earlier this year.

This image features something not seen in previously released Hubble images of the galaxy: data from the High Resolution Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The High Resolution Channel is one of three sub-instruments of ACS, which was installed in 2002. In five years of operation, the High Resolution Channel returned fantastically detailed observations of crowded, starry environments like the centers of starburst galaxies. An electronics fault in 2007, unfortunately, left the High Resolution Channel disabled.

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