Starburst region

Starbursts can occur in entire galaxies or just regions of space. For example, the Tarantula Nebula is a nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud which has one of the highest star formation rates in the Local Group. By contrast, a starburst galaxy is an entire galaxy that is experiencing a very high star formation rate. One notable example is Messier 82 in which the gas pressure is 100 times greater than in the local neighborhood, and it is forming stars at about the same rate as the entire Milky Way in a region only about 600 parsecs (2,000 ly) across. At this rate M82 will consume its 200 million solar masses of atomic and molecular hydrogen in 100 million years (its free-fall time).

Starburst regions can occur in different shapes, for example in Messier 94 the inner ring is a starburst region. Messier 82 has a starburst core of about 600 parsec in diameter. Starbursts are common during galaxy mergers such as the Antennae Galaxies. In the case of mergers, the starburst can either be local or galaxy-wide depending on the galaxies and how they are merging.