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Professor Clancy
M81-M82
Hi folks, Professor Clancy here to explain in some detail this photo Dad took a couple of years ago of Messier objects M81 (right) and M82 (Charles Messier was a French astronomer who published a catalogue of 110 nebulae and star clusters in 1781. He also discovered 13 comets.)
M81 and M82 galaxies are part of the M81 Group, a group of 34 galaxies in Ursa Major and Camelopardalis constellations. Due to their distance of approximately 12M light years from Earth, this group, together with the Local Group (containing the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy) are relative neighbors in the Virgo Supercluster. This Supercluster contains about 100 galaxy groups and clusters, and is one of about 10 million superclusters in the observable universe.
M81 is the largest (spiral) galaxy in the M81 Group and contains about 250 billion stars, roughly the same as our Milky Way, though it is estimated to be slightly smaller in diameter at around 90,000 light years across. This means it takes light photons, travelling at about 300,000 km/s (186,000 mi/s), 90,000 years to travel from one edge to the other.
M82 is seen nearly edge-on, and is an irregular galaxy with two recently discovered faint spiral arms. It is the closest starburst galaxy to us and about 5 times more luminous than the Milky Way due to it's gravitational interaction with M82. Hubble has revealed at least 197 massive young star clusters in it's energetic core, and Dad's photo reveals some of that incredible radiating activity, where stars are being born ten times faster than in our own galactic core.
Google Hubble M81-M82 for some truly spectacular photos of this great pair of galaxies, and party on, universe!
Professor Clancy
M81-M82
Hi folks, Professor Clancy here to explain in some detail this photo Dad took a couple of years ago of Messier objects M81 (right) and M82 (Charles Messier was a French astronomer who published a catalogue of 110 nebulae and star clusters in 1781. He also discovered 13 comets.)
M81 and M82 galaxies are part of the M81 Group, a group of 34 galaxies in Ursa Major and Camelopardalis constellations. Due to their distance of approximately 12M light years from Earth, this group, together with the Local Group (containing the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy) are relative neighbors in the Virgo Supercluster. This Supercluster contains about 100 galaxy groups and clusters, and is one of about 10 million superclusters in the observable universe.
M81 is the largest (spiral) galaxy in the M81 Group and contains about 250 billion stars, roughly the same as our Milky Way, though it is estimated to be slightly smaller in diameter at around 90,000 light years across. This means it takes light photons, travelling at about 300,000 km/s (186,000 mi/s), 90,000 years to travel from one edge to the other.
M82 is seen nearly edge-on, and is an irregular galaxy with two recently discovered faint spiral arms. It is the closest starburst galaxy to us and about 5 times more luminous than the Milky Way due to it's gravitational interaction with M82. Hubble has revealed at least 197 massive young star clusters in it's energetic core, and Dad's photo reveals some of that incredible radiating activity, where stars are being born ten times faster than in our own galactic core.
Google Hubble M81-M82 for some truly spectacular photos of this great pair of galaxies, and party on, universe!