NGC 253 lies around 11.5 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor.

Otherwise referred to as the Silver Coin, Silver Dollar Galaxy or Sculptor Galaxy, the galaxy was found on September 23, 1783 by Caroline Herschel (sis of William Herschel).

The galaxy is the brightest member of the Sculptor Group of galaxies.

It is thought about a starburst galaxy, where stars form and take off at an uncommonly high rate.

“NGC 253 is among the closest enormous star-forming galaxies to the Milky Way,” stated ESO astronomer Enrico Congiu and his coworkers.

“It is likewise among the biggest galaxies in the sky, with an obvious size of 42 x 12 arcmin²“

“With its popular excellent bar, distinct spiral arms, and star development spread throughout the disk, NGC 253 represents a close by, stereotypical example of a main-sequence spiral nebula.”

To produce the brand-new picture of the galaxy, the astronomers observed it for over 50 hours with the MUSE instrument on VLT.

They needed to sew together over 100 direct exposures to cover a location of the galaxy about 65,000 light-years large.

“We can focus to study specific areas where stars form at almost the scale of specific stars, however we can likewise zoom out to study the galaxy as an entire,” stated Dr. Kathryn Kreckel, an astronomer at Heidelberg University.

In their very first analysis of the information, the scientists discovered around 500 planetary nebulae, areas of gas and dust abandoned from passing away Sun-like stars, in NGC 253.

“Beyond our stellar community, we normally handle less than 100 detections per galaxy,” stated Fabian Scheuermann, a doctoral trainee at Heidelberg University.

“Because of the homes of planetary nebulae, they can be utilized as range markers to their host galaxies.”

“Finding the planetary nebulae enables us to validate the range to the galaxy– a crucial piece of details on which the remainder of the research studies of the galaxy depend,” stated Ohio State University’s Professor Adam Leroy.

“Future tasks utilizing the map will check out how gas streams, alters its structure, and forms stars all throughout this galaxy.”

“How such little procedures can have such a huge effect on a galaxy whose whole size is countless times larger is still a secret,” Dr. Congiu stated.

The outcomes will be released in the journal Astronomy & & Astrophysics

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E. Congiu et al2025. The MUSE view of the Sculptor galaxy: study summary and the planetary nebulae luminosity function. A&Ain press;