Grand Galaxy
by CritterKeeper on Jan.14, 2010, under Eyes in the Sky
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Here on Earth, we have a perfect seat to look on at the sweeping, grand design of spiral galaxy M81.
Explore the image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Follow the spiral arms with areas of hot, blue stars in the outer spirals as they wind down through dark, dust lanes to the older, yellow and red stars at the galaxy’s core. The hot, bluish stars formed only within the past few million years. Hubble’s view is so sharp that we can see individual stars, greenish areas of bright star formation, clouds of glowing gas, globular star clusters and open star clusters.
M81’s central bulge is much bigger than the Milky Way’s bulge. Astronomers believe a black hole the equivalent of 70 million of our Sun’s lies at the center of M81’s bulge. That black hole is 15 times larger than the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The bigger the black hole, the bigger the galaxy’s bulge.
The surge of new star formation in M81’s spiral arms may be due to interactions with nearby spiral galaxy NGC 3077 and M82, a starburst galaxy, about 300 million years ago. M81 is one of the closer galaxies to Earth at 11.6 million light-years. M81 is in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear and is one of the brightest that can be seen from Earth.
:black hole, galaxy collision, galaxy interaction, Hubble Space Telescope, M81, M82, NASA, NGC 3077, spiral galaxy
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