M82 and its smouldering heart (horizontal collage)

What lurks behind the dense, dusty clouds of this galactic neighbour? There lies the star-powered heart of the galaxy Messier 82 (M82), also known as the Cigar Galaxy. Located just 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (The Great Bear), the Cigar Galaxy is considered a nearby galaxy. As this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week shows in great detail, it’s home to brilliant stars whose light is shaded by sculptural clouds, clumps and streaks of dust and gas.

It’s no surprise that the Cigar Galaxy is so packed with stars, obscured though they might be by the distinctive clouds pictured here. Forming stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way, the Cigar Galaxy is what astronomers call a starburst galaxy. The intense starburst period that grips this galaxy has given rise to super star clusters in the galaxy’s heart. Each of these super star clusters contains hundreds of thousands of stars and is more luminous than a typical star cluster. Researchers used Hubble to home in on these massive clusters and reveal how they form and evolve.

This image compares two sets of data captured by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). On the left is an image of the Cigar Galaxy released in 2006, in celebration of Hubble’s 16th birthday. It was taken with ACS’s Wide Field Channel that is designed for broad surveys. On the right, newly processed data from the ACS High Resolution Channel creates a new view of the highly active super star clusters in M82’s heart. The High Resolution Channel, operational from 2002 to 2007, excelled at detailed observations of crowded, starry environments like the centres of starburst galaxies.

[Image Description: On the left is an image of the galaxy M82, showing its blue disc from the side, with plumes of red gas erupting from the top and bottom. It is labelled “Hubble/ACS/WFC”. A small box in the galaxy’s centre is pulled out to a second image on the right, labelled “Hubble/ACS/HRC”. This close-in view of the centre shows thick clumps of gas and dust obscuring the brilliant bluish light from newly forming star clusters.]