Overview

• Observations spanned more than 50 hours with ESO’s Very Large Telescope and its MUSE instrument, stitching over 100 exposures into a composite covering about 65,000 light-years.
• The image resolves roughly 4,000 distinct colors tied to hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen emissions, offering unprecedented spectral detail.
• Researchers identified around 500 planetary nebulae, enabling precise verification of the galaxy’s 11-million-light-year distance.
• Sculptor’s proximity and intense starburst activity position it as a bridge between high-resolution Milky Way studies and larger-scale extragalactic surveys.
• Today’s published analysis provides new insights into star-forming regions and the large-scale movement of interstellar gas across an entire galaxy.