NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured the sparkling spiral galaxy IC 5332 in a face-on orientation to Earth, located around 30 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. What makes this a face-on view is because it appears to be circular and disc-shaped from our perspective here on Earth, rather than edge-on as squashed and oval-shaped.
In this particular image, we can observe IC 5332’s circular shape and tightly winding spiral arms, while it glows brightly in the center. Upon closer inspection, you’ll see that it also dims to cooler colors towards the edge, while dark, faint filaments of dust and brightly glowing, pink and orange bubbles of star formation mark its face.
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IC 5332 is designated as an SABc-type galaxy in the De Vaucouleurs system of galaxy classification. 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 ‘AB’ is a little more complex. It means that the galaxy is weakly barred, which refers to the shape of the galaxy’s center,” said the ESA.
