Popcorn Galaxy

Deep Sky Videos is a series of films about astronomy.

We cover all sorts of topics, including a fun series inside the world's biggest and best telescopes.

But our raison d'être is making 110 films about every item in the Messier Catalogue - a series of objects in space listed by the French astronomer Charles Messier.

Here's a video I made about Messier, including a visit to his grave in Paris.

Today we posted our 49th Messier video, all about the galaxy he listed at number 82 (or M82). It's also known as the Cigar Galaxy or NGC 3030, where NGC means New General Catalogue.

The latest video features a comparison between the galaxy's lively core and a bag of microwave popcorn. It features Professor Paul Crowther from the University of Sheffield.

There is also some left-over material I posted in a second video which has some cool stuff about hypervelocity stars.

Here's a playlist of all the Messier Objects we have covered so far.