The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking new photo of the face-on spiral galaxy IC 5332.
This Hubble image shows IC 5332, a spiral galaxy some 30 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor. The color image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the ultraviolet, near-infrared, and optical parts of the spectrum. It is based on data obtained through six filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Chandar / J. Lee / PHANGS-HST Team.
IC 5332 is located approximately 30 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor.
The galaxy was discovered on November 19, 1897 by the American astronomer Lewis Swift.
IC 5332 has a diameter of 66,000 light-years, making it about a third smaller than our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Also known as ESO 408-9, HIPASS J2334-36 or LEDA 71775, IC 5332 has a very small central bulge and open spiral arms.
It is notable for being almost perfectly face-on with respect to Earth, allowing us to admire the symmetrical sweep of its spiral arms.
“To explain what is meant by ‘face-on’, it is helpful to visualize a spiral galaxy as an (extremely) large disk,” Hubble astronomers said.
“If the galaxy is oriented so that it appears circular and disk-shaped from our perspective here on Earth, then we can say that it is face-on.”
“In contrast, if it is oriented so that it appears squashed and oval-shaped, then we would say that it is edge-on.”
“The key thing is that the same galaxy would look extremely different from our perspective depending on whether it was face-on or edge-on as seen from Earth.”
According to the De Vaucouleurs system of galaxy classification, IC 5332 is the so-called SABc-type galaxy.
“The ‘S’ is straightforward, identifying it as a spiral galaxy, which it clearly is, given the well-defined arms of bright stars and darker dust that curl outwards from the galaxy’s dense and bright core,” the astronomers explained.
“The ‘AB’ is a little more complex. It means that the galaxy is weakly barred, which refers to the shape of the galaxy’s centre.”
“The majority of spiral galaxies do not spiral out from a single point, but rather from an elongated bar-type structure.”
“SAB galaxies — which are also known as intermediate spiral galaxies — do not have a clear bar-shape at their core, but also do not spiral out from a single point, instead falling somewhere in between.”
“The lowercase ‘c’ describes how tightly wound the spiral arms are: ‘a’ would indicate very tightly wound, and ‘d’ very loosely wound.”
“Thus, IC 5332 is quite an intermediate spiral galaxy on many fronts: weakly barred, with quite loosely wound arms, and almost completely face-on!”
