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PJM's Astronomy Gallery
CCD ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY IMAGE OF THE MONTH
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M82 - A Galaxy in a Starburst Frenzy
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M82 ( NGC 3034 ) in Ursa Major. 200 mm f/4 Schmidt-Newtonian images at prime focus on 19 October 1999. Combined R:G:B:L images of 3:5:4:4 minutes exposure. Field of view is 9 by 9 arcmin.
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Data: Messier No. 82 (NGC 3034)
Location: Ursa Major (R.A. 09:56:08 Dec. +69:40:30 )
Distance: 12 million light years
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Magnitude: 8.4
Size: 13 by 6 arcmin.
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Information on M82 and other useful background to this news has been sourced at SEDS.
M82 is classified as an irregular or Irr type galaxy (for classification types and examples see Galaxies ). A starburst galaxy- undergoing rapid phases of star creation - in which the most massive stars have died fastest in spectacular supernovae explosions and created the apparent chaotic image shown above. The rapidly expanding supernovae remnants were detected by a world wide array of 20 radio telescopes (Astronomy Now, Vol. 15, (3), 8, 2000)
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H Umeda and colleagues (University of Tokyo), as reported by Joshua Roth in Sky and Telescope ( Vol. 105 (2), 22, 2003 ), used x-ray spectral analysis for chemical elements to suggest the presence of hypernovae with energy some 10-100 times that of ordinary star-core collapse supernovae. An excess of silicon and sulphur prompted their conclusion. However, there is still some uncertainty in the detailed theory of material synthesis of chemical elements at the resolution of their data.
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Joshua Roth in Sky and Telescope ( Vol. 105, (6), 18, 2003 ), reports on more recent work by F Walter and colleagues (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) using a radio telescope array to examine the star formation in M82. Multi wavelength analysis enabled images of molecular hydrogen, i.e. the starbirth material, distribution around the galaxy. The distribution suggested streaking of the hydrogen due to a past encounter with the adjacent M81 spiral galaxy. The interaction is believed to have caused stirring and compression of the hydrogen gas to initiate starbirth. The (hyper)supernovae, however, may be expelling the hydrogen and thus limit further starbirth.
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References and Further Reading
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