Sculptor Group

The Sculptor group is a group of galaxies in the constellation Sculptor ( Sculptor ) near the Galactic South Pole. With a distance of about 12 million light-years ( about 4 Mpc ) it is next to the Maffei group one of the next cluster of galaxies outside the Local Group.

The Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253 ) and some other galaxies form the gravitationally bound core in the center of the group, while other galaxies seem connected at the edge of the group, but are not gravitationally bound. In various subgroups, the Sculptor Group pulls of about 2 Mpc (eg, NGC 55, NGC 300 ) to 6 Mpc distance from the Milky Way out. The assignment of these sub-groups for Sculptor group may therefore vary.