Biography of f bottiglieri sculptor galaxy
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They were also aided by VLT’s Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer. The cone of whiter light at the center is due to an outflow of gas from the black hole at the galaxy’s core.
In the first analysis of the data, the team discovered roughly 500 planetary nebulae–regions of gas and dust flung off dying sun-like stars.
Study co-author and Heidelberg University doctoral student Fabian Scheuermann put that number of nebulae into context: “Beyond our galactic neighbourhood, we usually deal with fewer than 100 detections per galaxy.”
Zooming into a thousand-colour image of the Sculptor Galaxy
Due to the different properties within, planetary nebulae can be used as cosmic distance markers to their host galaxies.
“Finding the planetary nebulae allows us to verify the distance to the galaxy — a critical piece of information on which the rest of the studies of the galaxy depend,” study co-author and astronomer at The Ohio State University Adam Leroy added.
In future projects with this map, astronomers hope to explore how gas flows, changes its composition, and forms stars all across this large galaxy.
“How such small processes can have such a big impact on a galaxy whose entire size is thousands of times bigger is still a mystery,” said Congiu.
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However, the evolutionary nuances that scientists are trying to research happen in the more granular aspects of the galaxy. Kathryn Kreckel, co-author of the study, concluded that the map of Sculptor enables researchers to zoom in and out of the image to understand “individual regions where stars form at nearly the scale of individual stars… and study the galaxy as a whole.”
Last updated: 9th Jul 2025
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Curtis Baines joined the Orbital Today team in March, 2023.
“It is close enough that we can resolve its internal structure and study its building blocks with incredible detail, but at the same time, big enough that we can still see it as a whole system.”
Like Lego bricks, the building blocks of a galaxy–dust, gas, and stars–all emit different colors and astronomers use various imaging filters to study and detect what’s inside.
“The Sculptor Galaxy is in a sweet spot – it is close enough that we can resolve its internal structure and study its building blocks with incredible detail, but at the same time, big enough that we can still see it as a whole system.”
Future work will involve understanding how gas flows, changes its composition, and forms stars in the galaxy.
Meaning, because the galaxy is ‘close by’ scientists can “study its building blocks with incredible detail.”
Equally, by researching the colours of the galaxy, ESO said they can survey Sculptor’s age. Reason being, they’re extremely large, often light years in diameter. Despite their size, how they evolved ultimately depends on what is going on at smaller scales.
“The Sculptor Galaxy is in a sweet spot,” said Congiu.
The result was a map of the Sculptor galaxy, showcasing its thousands of colours and never before seen features. This makes it harder for scientists to examine and study. The image and its implications are detailed in a study accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
“Galaxies are incredibly complex systems that we are still struggling to understand,” study co-author and ESO astronomer Enrico Congiu said in a statement.
Galaxies themselves can reach hundreds of thousands of light-years across, making them extremely large.
They monitored the galaxy using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO’s Chile observatory. The result saw features of the galaxy that no scientists or researcher laid eyes on before, with ESO’s press release calling the image a “galactic masterpiece.”
How ESO Took This ‘Galactic Masterpiece’ Of The Sculptor Galaxy
Utilising ESO’s VLT in northern Chile, scientists observed the Sculptor galaxy for over 50 hours.
Yet, Congiu remarked that Sculptor “is in a sweet spot”. For perspective, most images of galaxies are captured in only a smattering of colours. Nonetheless, this significant feat was underscored by the difficulty to capture the range of colourful lights that emanate from the stars, gas and dust.
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While Sculptor is seen as a nearby galaxy, it’s still over 11 million light-years away from Earth.
Using data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, the team created an incredibly detailed image of the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253). Curtis graduated with a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from Melbourne's Deakin University, achieving a distinction for his overall grade.
Curtis has an avid passion for space and the unanswered questions scientists are trying to solve.
The more shades of color included when imaging of a galaxy, the more we can understand its inner workings. There are an estimated 100 to 200 billion galaxies–dust clouds, stars, gas, and planets all bound together by gravity–swirling around in the universe.
Now, an international team of astronomers is getting a better look at one that’s not so far away–in space terms–from our home Milky Way galaxy.