NGC 253 (Caldwell 65) - The Sculptor Galaxy

One of the brightest galaxies outside our Local Group of galaxies, the Sculptor Galaxy is jam-packed with dark dust lanes and star-forming regions. Its prolific rate of star formation makes it what scientists call a starburst galaxy.

The Sculptor Galaxy is located 10 to 13 million light-years away in the Sculptor Constellation and is part of the Sculptor Galaxy Group—the nearest galaxy group to our Local Group. Still, it’s part of what scientists call the Local Volume, which is an area that extends out to a radius of 13 million light years from our galaxy.

Slightly smaller than our Milky Way Galaxy (100,000 light years across), the Sculptor Galaxy (90,000 light years in diameter) has a similar overall mass and a supermassive black hole at its center with roughly the same mass as the one at the center of our galaxy (four million suns).

One result of the frenetic star-forming activity in the Sculptor Galaxy is that many of the newly formed stars are high-mass stars that have short lives ending in supernova explosions. This distributes heavier elements, which include elements necessary for life, throughout the galaxy.