JWSTs 223-Megapixel Image of Starburst Galaxy M82 Reveals 16.5 Million Stars
Summary: NASA released a 223-megapixel near-infrared image of edge-on starburst galaxy M82 captured by JWST over three days, revealing a scene evolving over hundreds of millions of years.
NASAs James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) released on June 25, 2026 a high-resolution near-infrared image of Messier 82 (M82), also known as the Cigar Galaxy. The 223-megapixel image, captured over three days of observation, precisely identifies approximately 16.5 million individual stars and unveils details never seen before.
M82 is an edge-on starburst galaxy located roughly 12 million light-years from Earth and has long been a prime target for astronomers. The galaxy is undergoing intense star-forming activity, with dense concentrations of gas and dust that have historically obscured its internal structure in visible-light observations. Leveraging its near-infrared capabilities, JWST was able to peer through the dust to reveal the galaxys distended disk structure for the first time.
According to NASA and the University of Michigan research team, the observation combines new JWST data with archival Hubble Space Telescope imagery to trace M82s stellar evolution over hundreds of millions of years. While Hubble and other observatories have previously imaged M82 in visible light, the JWST near-infrared data provides a fundamentally new view of the distribution of gas, dust, and stars, helping scientists better understand the mechanisms driving the galaxys evolution.