Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2026

JULY-AUGUST 2026 XRISM telescope measures the hot wind in M82 F or the first time, astronomers have directly measured the speed of superheated gas bil- lowing from a cauldron of stellar ac- tivity at the heart of M82, a nearby galaxy undergoing an extraordinary burst of star formation. The material is moving more than 2 million miles T he cool wind of galaxy M82 drives gas and dust up to 40,000 light-years from its core, as shown here using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The inset shows a Chandra view of the galaxy’s central region, where a cauldron of stellar activity kick-starts the larger- scale outflow. [NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; X-ray: NASA/CXC/JHU/ D.Strickland; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA/The Hubble Heritage Team; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of AZ/C. Engelbracht; XRISM Collaboration et al. 2026] by NASA/ESA/CSA Claire Andreoli