Chandra Release - June 5, 2001

Visual Description: M82

 An ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in the galaxy M82 - 11 million light years from Earth -  is the main subject of the image. This galaxy is known for being a starburst galaxy, which means that it is experiencing an intense period of star formation. ULXs are extremely luminous sources of X-rays, with luminosities several orders of magnitude greater than typical X-ray binaries or supernova remnants.  The image shows a bright red and orange glow in the center of the galaxy, with smaller bright sources sprinkled through the center at a slight diagonal. This Chandra image is colorized to highlight a population of these point-like "ultraluminous" X-ray sources in M82. Red represents the low energy X-rays, green intermediate, and blue the highest observed energies. The white and yellow sources are those that emit significant amounts of both low- and high-energy X-rays. The ultraluminous sources, which emit ten to several hundred times more X-ray power than similar sources in our Galaxy, are believed to be either massive black holes, or black holes that are beaming energy toward Earth. The brightest point-like source, located near the center of the image, is the most powerful ultraluminous source detected in any galaxy at the time of this observation.