Public domain

The Cigar Galaxy's Magnetic Field

NASA / JPL · 2019-03-05 · photograph (digital archive)

From the collection of NASA Image and Video Library. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.

About this work

A composite image of the Cigar Galaxy (also called M82), a starburst galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The magnetic field detected by the High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera-Plus instrument (known as HAWC+) on SOFIA (the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), shown as streamlines, appears to follow the bipolar outflows (red) generated by the intense nuclear starburst.

NASA Image and Video Library’s own description

Subjects

Spitzer Space Telescope

Credit lineThe Cigar Galaxy's Magnetic Field. NASA/JPL, 2019-03-05. Public domain. ID: PIA23010.

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