The huge telescope of the southern European Observatory succeeded in capturing an unprecedented visual masterpiece with thousands of color gradients, by collecting huge amounts of data for the “sculptor“, which is 11 million light years away from the ground, as the image with its data supports research on the stages of the life of the stars inside the galaxies.
The researchers needed more than 50 hours using a Muse Spectrum Expressor on the huge European Observatory, then they collected more than 100 pictures, to cover the area of the galaxy, which is about 65,000 light years.
Dr. Catherine Crickel from the German University of Heidelberg considered that the image constitutes an influential scientific tool, as it can be enlarged to study small areas, reaching the size of one star, or minimizing it to see the entire galaxy as it is one system.
Image data analysis revealed about 500 planetary nebula, which is clouds of gas and dust resulting from the death of sun -like stars, this number is much larger compared to other galaxies, where the usual is less than 100 nebulas in one galaxy, and the presence of thousands of color gradients in the image enables scientists to determine the age and components, and the movement of objects inside the galaxy.
Dr. Enrico Kongio, a researcher at the Southern Observatory, says: “Galaxies are highly complex systems, and we are still striving to understand them, they are very huge, but their trips depend on what happens with small ranges.
Galaxy »sculptor» is an ideal location, it is close enough to analyze its internal structure and study its basic components with amazing details, and at the same time great enough to see and study it as an integrated system.
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