The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced an incredibly detailed image of IC 5201, a galaxy in the southern constellation of Grus.
This Hubble image shows the barred spiral galaxy IC 5201, which lies in constellation of Grus, approximately 35.5 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.
IC 5201, also known as ESO 289-18 and LEDA 68618, is nearly 35.5 million light-years from Earth.
It was discovered in 1900 by the British-South African astronomer Joseph Lunt in photographs taken at Cape Town Observatory.
IC 5201 is classified as a barred spiral galaxy.
Galaxies of this type are so named because of bar-shaped structures found in their center.
They form about two thirds of all spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Recent studies suggest that bars may be a common stage in the formation of spiral galaxies, and may indicate that a galaxy has reached full maturity.
In 1978, British astronomer Martin Ward and co-authors discovered a Type II supernova, SN 1978g, in IC 5201.
This image of IC 5201 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
Two filters — a broad V-band filter (F606W) and a near-infrared filter (F814W) — were used to sample various wavelengths.
The color results from assigning different hues to each grayscale image associated with an individual filter.
