在雪茄星系尘埃云的后方，隐藏着一个令人目眩的恒星形成引擎，其恒星诞生速度比银河系快十倍。天文学家借助哈勃太空望远镜在其核心区域发现了巨型超级星团，每个星团都包含数十万颗恒星，亮度远超普通星团。这些观测不仅揭示了该星系惊人的恒星形成速率，更为研究此类巨型星团的形成与演化机制提供了珍贵视角。
It's no surprise that the Cigar Galaxy is so packed with stars, obscured though they might be by the distinctive clouds pictured here. Forming stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way, the Cigar Galaxy is what astronomers call a starburst galaxy. The intense starburst period that grips this galaxy has given rise to super star clusters in the galaxy's heart. Each of these super star clusters contains hundreds of thousands of stars and is more luminous than a typical star cluster. Researchers used Hubble to home in on these massive clusters and reveal how they form and evolve.
Hubble's views of the Cigar Galaxy have been featured before, both as a previous Picture of the Week in 2012 and as an image released in celebration of Hubble's 16th birthday. The James Webb Space Telescope has also turned toward the Cigar Galaxy, producing infrared images in 2024 and earlier this year.
This image features something not seen in previously released Hubble images of the galaxy: data from the High Resolution Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The High Resolution Channel is one of three sub-instruments of ACS, which was installed in 2002. In five years of operation, the High Resolution Channel returned fantastically detailed observations of crowded, starry environments like the centers of starburst galaxies. An electronics fault in 2007 unfortunately left the High Resolution Channel disabled.