Starburst region

This starburst activity will consume the available interstellar gas supply over a timespan that is much shorter than the lifetime of the galaxy.

[2] Due to the high amount of star formation a starburst is usually accompanied by much higher gas pressure and a larger ratio of hydrogen cyanide to carbon monoxide emission-lines than are usually observed.

[3] Starbursts can occur in entire galaxies or just regions of space.

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.

In the case of mergers, the starburst can either be local or galaxy-wide depending on the galaxies and how they are merging.