M81 and M82 are a prominent, gravitationally interacting galaxy pair in Ursa Major, noted for their contrasting morphological features. M81 is an Sb spiral galaxy, exhibiting bluish-white arms from ...

In a nearby and decidedly odd galaxy, a star exploded. The fierce light and intense energy screamed outward, marching across the vast reaches of space. Vast indeed: It took nearly 12 million years for ...

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is an astronomy blogger’s gift that keeps on giving. Observing huge swaths of the sky in the infrared, it sends back the coolest images! Behold: Yeah, ...

A cloudy night in London led to the discovery of the 21st Century's brightest supernova to date. The new supernova 2014J, the brightest since 1993, is located in the galaxy M82. This Type-Ia supernova ...

Beautiful, detailed Hubble images of the centre of the prototypical starburst galaxy M82 point to a violent past. An ancient burst of star formation that gave birth to more than 100 super star ...

M82 — also known as the Cigar Galaxy — and neighboring M81 (see #92), together make up one of the night sky’s dynamic duos. M82 is one of the closest (12 million light-years) examples of an edge-on ...