Hubble spies huge clusters of stars formed by ancient encounter: This stunningly beautiful image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the heart of the prototypical starburst galaxy M82. The ongoing violent star formation due to an ancient encounter with its large galactic neighbour, M81, gives this galaxy its disturbed appearance. The smaller ground-based picture at upper left shows the entire galaxy. The image was taken by Robert Gendler with a 12 inch telescope from a suburb outside Hartford, Connecticut. Hubble's view is represented by the white outline in the centre. In the Hubble image, taken by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, the huge lanes of dust that crisscross M82's disk are another telltale sign of the flurry of star formation. Below the centre and to the right, a strong galactic wind is spewing knotty filaments of hydrogen and nitrogen gas. More than 100 super star clusters - very bright, compact groupings of about 100, 000 stars - are seen in this detailed Hubble picture as white dots sprinkled throughout M82's central region. The dark region just above the centre of the picture is a huge dust cloud. A collaboration of European and American scientists used these clusters to date the ancient interaction between M82 and M81. About 600 million years ago, a region called 'M82 B' (the bright area just below and to the left of the central dust cloud) exploded with new stars. Scientists have discovered that this ancient starburst was triggered by the violent encounter with M81. M82 is a bright (eighth magnitude), nearby (12 million light-years from Earth) galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). The Hubble picture was taken on September 15, 1997. The natural-colour composite was constructed from three Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 exposures, which were combined in chromatic order: 4, 250 seconds through a blue filter (428 nm); 2, 800 seconds through a green filter (520 nm); and 2, 200 seconds through a red (820 nm) filter. Credits for Hubble image: NASA, ESA, R. de Grijs (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK) This image is issued jointly by NASA and ESA.

Name: Messier 82, NGC 3034
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Activity : Starburst
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 13 million light years
Release date: 7 March 2001, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, R. de Grijs (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK)

Hubble spies huge clusters of stars formed by ancient encounter: These two views of the heart of the galaxy M82 were snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The image on the left was taken in visible light with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2); the picture on the right, in infrared light. In the infrared view, the telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) peered through thick dust lanes to find some of the galaxy's more than 100 super star clusters. The clusters are the larger white dots scattered throughout the picture. They were formed during a violent encounter with the galaxy M81 about 600 million years ago. The thousands of stars in the galactic background belong to a population of red giant stars in M82. In the lower right corner the full WFPC2 image is shown. The white outline indicates the field of the NICMOS image. The galaxy is 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. The NICMOS and WFPC2 pictures were taken on September 15, 1997. Two images each composed of eight exposures were combined for the NICMOS mosaic: 768 seconds in J (1.1 micron - here coloured blue) and 768 seconds in H (1.6 micron - here coloured red) in total. Green is constructed from a mix of J and H. This image is issued jointly by NASA and ESA.

Name: Messier 82, NGC 3034
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Activity : Starburst
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 13 million light years
Release date: 7 March 2001, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, R. de Grijs (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK)

Ground-based view of two galaxy neighbours: M81 and M82: This ground-based image of M81 (left) and M82 (right) was taken by Robert Gendler with a 12 inch telescope from a suburb outside Hartford, Connecticut. The distance between the two popular galaxies is 37 arc-minutes (approximately a moon diameter). Credit: Robert Gendler

Name: Messier 81, Messier 82, NGC 3031, NGC 3034
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Activity : Starburst
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Ursa Major
Release date: 7 March 2001, 15:00
Credit: Robert Gendler

Hubble spies huge clusters of stars formed by ancient encounter: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope snapped this view of the heart of the galaxy M82. The image was taken in infrared light with the telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). Hubble peered through thick dust lanes to find some of the galaxy's more than 100 super star clusters. The clusters are the larger white dots scattered throughout the picture. They were formed during a violent encounter with the galaxy M81 about 600 million years ago. The thousands of stars in the galactic background belong to a population of red giant stars in M82. The galaxy is 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. The pictures were taken on September 15, 1997. Two images each composed of eight exposures were combined for the NICMOS mosaic: 768 seconds in J (1.1 micron - here coloured blue) and 768 seconds in H (1.6 micron - here coloured red) in total. Green is constructed from a mix of J and H. This image is issued jointly by NASA and ESA.

Name: Messier 82, NGC 3034
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Activity : Starburst
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance: 13 million light years
Release date: 7 March 2001, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, R. de Grijs (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK)

Ground-based close-up view of M82: This ground-based image of M82 was taken by Robert Gendler with a 12 inch telescope from a suburb outside Hartford, Connecticut. Credit: Robert Gendler

Name: Messier 82, NGC 3034
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Activity : Starburst
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance: 13 million light years
Release date: 7 March 2001, 15:00
Credit: Robert Gendler

N83B - massive infant stars rock their cradle: Extremely intense radiation from newly born, ultra-bright stars has blown a glowing spherical bubble in the nebula N83B, also known as NGC 1748. A new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image has helped to decipher the complex interplay of gas and radiation of a star-forming region in a nearby galaxy. The image graphically illustrates just how these massive stars sculpt their environment by generating powerful winds that alter the shape of the parent gaseous nebula. These processes are also seen in our Milky Way in regions like the Orion Nebula. The Hubble telescope is famous for its contribution to our knowledge about star formation in very distant galaxies. Although most of the stars in the Universe were born several billions of years ago, when the Universe was young, star formation still continues today. This new Hubble image shows a very compact star-forming region in a small part of one of our neighboring galaxies - the Large Magellanic Cloud. This galaxy lies only 165,000 light-years from our Milky Way and can easily be seen with the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere.

Name: N 83B, NGC 1748
Type: Local Universe : Nebula : Type : Star Formation
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Dorado
Distance: 170000 light years
Release date: 28 March 2001, 15:00
Credit: ESA, NASA & Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri (Observatoire de Paris, France)