March 12, 2001
The universe has spent billions of years making things that shine. On your birthday, we celebrate one of its quieter masterpieces.
M82 After the Crash
Birthday · March 12, 2001
A little universe, just for you
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APOD published March 12, 2001. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
When did the Cigar Galaxy light up? Evidence indicates how M82, the Cigar Galaxy, became so bright and peculiar: it collided with neighboring galaxy M81. Astronomers become detectives, however, when trying to figure out when this collision occurred. Inspection of this and other Hubble Space Telescope images now indicate massive young globular star clusters were formed during the encounter. Stars in these clusters that are 600 million years old are just now exhausting their central hydrogen fuel, indicating that the Cigar Galaxy's brightening occurred just that long ago. M82 is located about 12 million light years away and visible with binoculars towards the constellation of Ursa Major. The star-field shown above spans about 10,000 light years.