The Dorado Group of Galaxies | Euclid Space Telescope

The Dorado Group of Galaxies | Euclid Space Telescope

The Dorado Group of galaxies is one of the richest galaxy groups in the southern hemisphere. Here, the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope captures signs of galaxies evolving and merging ‘in action’, with beautiful tidal tails and shells visible as a result of ongoing interactions. Since Dorado is a lot younger than other clusters (like Fornax), several of its constituent galaxies are still forming stars and remain in the stage of interacting with one another, while others show signs of having merged relatively recently. In size, it sits between larger galaxy clusters and smaller galaxy groups, making it a useful and fascinating object to study with Euclid. The Dorado Group lies 62 million light-years away in the constellation of Dorado.

This dataset is enabling scientists to study how galaxies evolve and collide over time in order to improve our models of cosmic history and understand how galaxies form within halos of dark matter. This new image demonstrates Euclid’s versatility. A wide array of galaxies is visible here, from very bright to very faint. Thanks to Euclid’s unique combination of large field-of-view and high spatial resolution, for the first time we can use the same instrument and observations to deeply study tiny (small objects the size of star clusters), wider (the central parts of a galaxy) and extended (tidal merger tails) features over a large part of the sky.

Scientists are also using Euclid observations of the Dorado Group to answer questions that previously could only be explored using painstakingly small snippets of data. This includes compiling a full list of the individual clusters of stars (globular clusters) around the galaxies seen here. Once we know where these clusters are, we can use them to trace how the galaxies formed and study their history and contents. Scientists will also use these data to hunt for new dwarf galaxies around the Group, as it did previously with the Perseus cluster.

Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA 

Image Processing: J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay), G. Anselmi

Release Date: May 23, 2024

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