Video Credit: Deep Sky Videos
M82
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Tag Archives: Starburst Galaxy
NGC 6217
NGC 6217 is a barred spiral galaxy located about 67 million light years away in the constellation Ursa Minor. It’s characterized as a starburst galaxy undergoing a higher rate of star formation than a typical galaxy. As a result, the galaxy’s spectrum is dominated by stellar photoionization from young, hot stars.
Image Credit: NASA / ESA
A Doomed Dwarf
This is the dwarf galaxy known as NGC 1140. It lies 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. It has an irregular form, much like the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. This small galaxy is undergoing a starburst. Despite being only about one-tenth the size of the Milky Way, it is creating stars at about the same rate—the equivalent of one star the size of our sun being created per year. The galaxy is full of bright, blue-white, young stars.
Galaxies like NGC 1140 are of particular interest to astronomers because their composition makes them similar to the intensely star-forming galaxies in the early Universe, and those early Universe galaxies were the building blocks of present-day large galaxies like our Milky Way. Because they are so far away, the early Universe galaxies are harder to study, so these closer starbursting galaxies are a good substitute for studyingt galaxy evolution.
Its vigorous star formation eventually will have a very destructive effect on this small dwarf galaxy. When the larger stars in the galaxy die and explode as supernovae, the gas blown into space may escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy. The ejection of gas from the galaxy will starve future star formation. Thus, NGC 1140’s starburst cannot last for long.
Image Credit: ESA
M61
Messier 61 is a type of galaxy known as a starburst galaxy. Starburst galaxies have an abnormally high rate of star formation, hungrily using up their reservoir of gas in a very short period of time (in astronomical terms). However, that’s not the only activity we believe is going on within M61; deep at its heart there is thought to be a supermassive black hole that is violently spewing out radiation.
Despite its inclusion in the Messier Catalogue, Messier 61 was actually discovered by Italian astronomer Barnabus Oriani in 1779. Charles Messier also noticed this galaxy on the very same day as Oriani, but mistook it for a comet.
Image Credit: NASA
Panning Across the Starburst Arc
This Hubble image shows a massive galaxy about 4.6 billion light years away. Around that galaxy’s border are four bright arcs. They are images the same distant galaxy nicknamed the Sunburst Arc. The Sunburst Arc galaxy is almost 11 billion light-years away. Its light is lensed into multiple images by gravitational lensing of the nearer galaxy. The Sunburst Arc is one of the brightest lensed galaxies known, and its image is visible at least 12 times within the four arcs.
Video Credit: ESA / NASA / Rivera-Thorsen et al.
A Starbursting Galaxy
This is the dwarf galaxy known as NGC 1140. It lies 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. It has an irregular form, much like the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. This small galaxy is undergoing a starburst. Despite being only about one-tenth the size of the Milky Way, it is creating stars at about the same rate—the equivalent of one star the size of our sun being created per year. The galaxy is full of bright, blue-white, young stars.
Galaxies like NGC 1140 are of particular interest to astronomers because their composition makes them similar to the intensely star-forming galaxies in the early Universe, and those early Universe galaxies were the building blocks of present-day large galaxies like our Milky Way. Because they are so far away, the early Universe galaxies are harder to study, so these closer starbursting galaxies are a good substitute for studyingt galaxy evolution.
Its vigorous star formation eventually will have a very destructive effect on this small dwarf galaxy. When the larger stars in the galaxy die and explode as supernovae, the gas blown into space may escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy. The ejection of gas from the galaxy throws away one of the building blocks for future star formation. Thus, NGC 1140’s starburst cannot last for long.
Image Credit: ESA
IC 10
This is an irregular galaxy named IC 10, a member of the Local Group — the nearby group of over 50 galaxies that includes the Milky Way. IC 10 is the closest-known starburst galaxy to us. It is the site of rapid star formation fueled by ample supplies of cool hydrogen gas. This gas condenses into vast molecular clouds which further contract into dense knots where pressures and temperatures reach a point sufficient to ignite nuclear fusion, and new stars are born.
Image Credit: ESA / NASA
Starburst Galaxies
Video Credit: ESO
Dwarfs That Pack a Punch
Video Credit: ESO
A Dwarf Starburst Galaxy
NGC 1705 is a oddball irregular dwarf galaxy undergoing a starburst. It’s about 17 million light-years from the Earth in the constellation Pictor. Dwarf galaxies were probably the first systems to collapse and start forming stars in the early universe. They represent the building blocks from which more massive objects (such as spiral and elliptical galaxies) were formed through mergers. The remaining dwarf galaxies are thought to be the leftovers of the galaxy-formation process.
Image Credit: NASA
M94
This is the galaxy Messier 94 which lies about 16 million light-years away. Within the bright ring around Messier 94, new stars are forming at a high rate, so many that that feature is called a starburst ring. This peculiarly-shaped star-forming region is likely the result of a pressure wave going outwards from the galactic center, compressing the gas and dust in the outer region. The compression causes the gas to collapse into denser clouds, and gravity pulls the gas and dust together inside the clouds until temperature and pressure are high enough for stars to be born.
Image Credit: ESA / NASA
A Starburst Galaxy
The MCG+07-33-027 galaxy is about 300 million light-years away from us, and it’s currently experiencing an extraordinarily high rate of star formation— a starburst. We see MCG+07-33-027 face on, so the galaxy’s spiral arms and the bright star-forming regions within them are clearly visible.
Most galaxies produce only handful new stars per year, but starburst galaxies can produce hundreds. In order to form new stars, the parent galaxy needs a large reserve of gas which is slowly depleted as stars spawn over time. A starburst often starts following a collision with another galaxy, but MCG+07-33-027 is rather isolated. The triggering of the starburst probably wasn’t caused by a collision with a neighboring or passing galaxy. It’s something of an enigma.
The bright object to the right of the galaxy is a foreground star in our own galaxy.
Image Credit: ESA
A Starbursting Galaxy
This is the dwarf galaxy known as NGC 1140. It lies 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. It has an irregular form, much like the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. This small galaxy is undergoing a starburst. Despite being only about one-tenth the size of the Milky Way, it is creating stars at about the same rate—the equivalent of one star the size of our sun being created per year. The galaxy is full of bright, blue-white, young stars.
Galaxies like NGC 1140 are of particular interest to astronomers because their composition makes them similar to the intensely star-forming galaxies in the early Universe, and those early Universe galaxies were the building blocks of present-day large galaxies like our Milky Way. Because they are so far away, the early Universe galaxies are harder to study, so these closer starbursting galaxies are a good substitute for studyingt galaxy evolution.
Its vigorous star formation eventually will have a very destructive effect on this small dwarf galaxy. When the larger stars in the galaxy die and explode as supernovae, the gas blown into space may escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy. The ejection of gas from the galaxy throws away one of the building blocks for future star formation. Thus, NGC 1140’s starburst cannot last for long.
Image Credit: ESA
NGC 3310
NGC 3310 is a grand design spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. It is also a starburst galaxy. (Starburst galaxies are undergoing an exceptionally high rate of star formation.) NGC 3310 probably collided with one of its satellite galaxies about 100 million years ago, triggering widespread star formation. The ring clusters of NGC 3310 have been undergoing starburst activity for at least the last 40 million years.
Image Credit: NASA