Cigar Galaxy
M82 · NGC 3034
A starburst galaxy forming stars ten times faster than the Milky Way, driving plumes of glowing gas out of its core.
Cigar is a starburst galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major about 12 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 37,000 ly, about 37% of our Milky Way's width. The light reaching us tonight left it about 12 million years ago.
Starburst
type · S?
12 million ly
from Earth · measured
37k ly
across
8.3
apparent magnitude
Because its light is 12 million ly from home, you are seeing Cigar as it looked roughly 12 million years ago. The photons left before that much of history had passed, and are only now reaching us.
Nearest galaxies
Bode'sSpiral320,000 ly
apartAndromedaSpiral11 million ly
apartTriangulumSpiral11 million ly
apartMilky WayBarred spiral12 million ly
apartLarge Magellanic CloudIrregular12 million ly
apartSmall Magellanic CloudIrregular12 million ly
apart
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→apartAndromedaSpiral11 million ly
apartTriangulumSpiral11 million ly
apartMilky WayBarred spiral12 million ly
apartLarge Magellanic CloudIrregular12 million ly
apartSmall Magellanic CloudIrregular12 million ly
apart
Source: structural data (position, morphology, brightness, redshift) from OpenNGC (CC BY-SA). Distance from published measurements.