Image 6-2
Starburst Galaxy M82

This mosaic image is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of M82, the Starburst Galaxy. This galaxy is remarkable for its bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds, and fiery-looking plumes of glowing hydrogen. Throughout the galaxy's center, young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way Galaxy. M82 is located 12 million light-years from Earth in in the the constellation Ursa Major. It is also called the "Cigar Galaxy" because of the elliptical shape produced by the oblique tilt of its starry disk relative to our line of sight.