Chandra Release - April 29, 2010

Visual Description: M82

A composite image of the starburst galaxy M82 is shown, which features an inset X-ray closeup of blue in the upper left.  Images from three of NASA's Great Observatories were combined to create this spectacular, multiwavelength view of the starburst galaxy M82. Optical light from the Hubble Space Telescope shows stars (yellow-green) and the disk of a modest-sized, apparently normal galaxy.  Another Hubble observation designed to image 10,000 degree Celsius hydrogen gas is in orange, and reveals a startlingly different picture of matter blasting out of the galaxy. The Spitzer Space Telescope infrared image colored in red shows that cool gas and dust are also being ejected. Chandra's X-ray image in blue reveals gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by the violent outflow. The eruption can be traced back to the central regions of the galaxy where stars are forming at a furious rate, some 10 times faster than in the Milky Way galaxy. Together, the slices of light make the galaxy appear as a bright, glowing structure in the center of the image, like a gigantic cosmic firework, with shades of red, purple, blue, and orange emanating from its core.  The flat disk of the galaxy cuts across the central region, tilted at an angle to the upper right, in white-yellow to light greens.   The pullout is a Chandra image in blue that shows the central region of the galaxy and contains two bright X-ray sources in the center of special interest. X-ray studies show that these two sources may be intermediate-mass black holes, with masses in between those of the stellar-mass and supermassive variety. These "survivor" black holes avoided falling into the center of the galaxy and could be examples of the seeds required for the growth of supermassive black holes in galaxies, including the one in the Milky Way.