LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — University of Michigan astronomers were part of a team that have helped gain “transformational” insight into a “scientifically unique” galaxy close to our own after decades of astronomers being unable to even clearly see it.
While “close” here refers to a distance of around 12 million light years — or 70 quintillion miles — the conditions inside Ursa Major’s Messier 82, often referred to as the Cigar Galaxy or simply as M82, makes it a “one-of-a-kind” environment for astronomers to study.
But for many years, there was a problem — a thick cloud of dust within the galaxy that shielded it from telescopes, limiting the amount of information astronomers could learn.
Eric Bell is a professor in U-M’s Department of Astronomy. He and third-year PhD student Vaishnav Rao have joined a team of researchers working on the Cibola survey, which pinpointed 16.5 million stars at the heart of the Cigar Galaxy and revealed new details about its structure…