One of the brightest galaxies in the sky sparkles in an infrared image from the newest telescope at an observatory in the Chilean desert. Infrared instruments are particularly good at peering through the dust that clutters up the centers of starburst galaxies - such as the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253), which is about 13 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. The European Southern Observatory's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope, or VISTA, is in the midst of surveying the night sky from the Paranal Observatory in Chile - and NGC 253 provides a great illustration of how much more VISTA is able to see when it looks into the dusty hearts of galaxies. Check out this comparison of the infrared and visible-light views, and get the full story from ESO ... including this video.
New view of a galactic vista
