Boomer12k wrote:Wow...lots going on over there...beautiful image! Maybe...The Holiday Galaxy???
Is it a Starburst Galaxy? Could not find that out....
And thanks to Ann for the M74 shot...
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You're welcome!
IC 342 is not a starburst galaxy. You can tell it isn't just by looking at it. Note that it is well-ordered, with fine, quite regular spiral arms. There is not a lot of dust in IC 342, but the dust lanes are well-ordered and follow the regular shape of the spiral arms. We can see no signs that anything special is going on in the nucleus.
Starburst galaxies are typically dusty and often chaotic. Often the starburst itself is located in a rather small part of the galaxy, usually the nuclear region. It is not unusual that the parts of the galaxy outside the starburst are quite poor in star formation.
One nearby starburst galaxy is
NGC 253. If you take a good look at the picture, you can see that NGC 253 is really quite dusty, and the dust is rather messy and chaotic. There is not a tremendous amount of star formation in the outer parts of the galaxy, but there is
a starburst going on in the nuclear region.
NGC 5253. ESA/NASA/Hubble.
One of my own favorite starburst galaxies is the quite small galaxy NGC 5253. This is actually a so called BCD galaxy, a Blue Compact Dwarf galaxy. The nuclear starburst is very visible here, because the galaxy is almost dust-free. But you can spot a tendril of dust apparently leading straight into the heart of the starburst. Note that the starburst region is surrounded by a large, faint, reddish envelope of old red stars.
IC 10. Image: The Survey Team of the Lowell Observatory.
Another favorite starburst galaxy of mine is IC 10, which is actually a member of our own Local Group of galaxies. IC 10 is the only starburst member of the Local Group. You can see that the little galaxy looks quite contorted, and huge "blisters" of ionized gas are breaking out everywhere.
But the best-known starburst galaxy in the nearby universe is certainly M82. Almost everyone who takes any sort of interest in nearby galaxies is familiar with the Cigar Galaxy's amazing plumes of ionized red gas being jettisoned out of the galactic poles. There red plumes are the result of
a nuclear starburst. Note that the disk of the galaxy appears to lack star formation altogether.
Well-behaved IC 342, on the other hand, is not a starburst galaxy.
Ann
Hidden Galaxy IC 342
