page_title: Starburst galaxy
hierarchical_section_title: Starburst galaxy
caption_attribution_description: English: Original caption from NASA: “This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the Antennae galaxies (NGC 4038 &amp; 4039) is the sharpest yet of this merging pair of galaxies. During the course of the collision, billions of stars will be formed. The brightest and most compact of these star birth regions are called super star clusters.” “ The two spiral galaxies started to interact a few hundred million years ago, making the Antennae galaxies one of the nearest and youngest examples of a pair of colliding galaxies. Nearly half of the faint objects in the Antennae image are young clusters containing tens of thousands of stars. The orange blobs to the left and right of image center are the two cores of the original galaxies and consist mainly of old stars criss-crossed by filaments of dust, which appear brown in the image. The two galaxies are dotted with brilliant blue star-forming regions surrounded by glowing hydrogen gas, appearing in the image in pink.” Français&#160;: NGC 4038 et NGC 4039, dites les Galaxies des Antennes, photographiées par le télescope spatial Hubble, de la NASA. Ces deux galaxies sont en train de fusionner, et cette fusion engendre la formation de nombreux amas d'étoiles. Les galaxies des antennes ont commencé à interagir il y a quelques centaines de millions d'années, et constituent l'une des paires de galaxies en interaction gravitaires les plus proches et les mieux visibles du ciel.
context_page_description: A starburst galaxy is a galaxy undergoing an exceptionally high rate of star formation, as compared to the long-term average rate of star formation in the galaxy or the star formation rate observed in most other galaxies. For example, the star formation rate of the Milky Way galaxy is approximately 3 M☉/yr, however, starburst galaxies can experience star formation rates that are more than a factor of 33 times greater. In a starburst galaxy, the rate of star formation is so large that the galaxy will consume all of its gas reservoir, from which the stars are forming, on a timescale much shorter than the age of the galaxy. As such, the starburst nature of a galaxy is a phase, and one that typically occupies a brief period of a galaxy's evolution. The majority of starburst galaxies are in the midst of a merger or close encounter with another galaxy. Starburst galaxies include M82, NGC 4038/NGC 4039, and IC 10.
context_section_description: A starburst galaxy is a galaxy undergoing an exceptionally high rate of star formation, as compared to the long-term average rate of star formation in the galaxy or the star formation rate observed in most other galaxies. For example, the star formation rate of the Milky Way galaxy is approximately 3 M☉/yr, however, starburst galaxies can experience star formation rates that are more than a factor of 33 times greater. In a starburst galaxy, the rate of star formation is so large that the galaxy will consume all of its gas reservoir, from which the stars are forming, on a timescale much shorter than the age of the galaxy. As such, the starburst nature of a galaxy is a phase, and one that typically occupies a brief period of a galaxy's evolution. The majority of starburst galaxies are in the midst of a merger or close encounter with another galaxy. Starburst galaxies include M82, NGC 4038/NGC 4039 (the Antennae Galaxies), and IC 10.
caption: The Antennae Galaxies are an example of a starburst galaxy occurring from the collision of NGC 4038/NGC 4039. Credit: NASA/ESA.
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