A GALAXY BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULDN’T BE IDENTIFIED AS SWEET!

 A galaxy by any other name wouldn’t be identified as sweet! :

This glittering galaxy lies about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor, and has an almost face-on orientation to Earth. If we’re naming it technically it is a SABc-type galaxy. Let’s break down what that means:⁣

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S-The well-defined arms of bright stars and darker dust that curl outwards from the galaxy’s dense and bright core identifies the galaxy as Spiral. ⁣

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AB – Many spiral galaxies do not spiral out from a single point, but rather from an elongated bar-type structure. This one in particular is considered “weakly barred” giving it its AB designation. ⁣

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c – The lowercase ‘c’ identifies how tightly wound the spiral arms are. Where ‘a’ would indicate very tightly wound, and ‘d’ very loosely wound. ⁣

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As the capabilities of our telescopes grow, the catalogues of our findings evolve, as well -- and this is one of the ways we keep track of it all! ⁣

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Image Description: A close-in view of a spiral galaxy. We see it face-on, showing its circular shape and tightly winding spiral arms. The galaxy glows in golden hue brightly in the center and dims to cool blue tones toward the edge. Dark, faint filaments of dust and brightly-glowing fuchsia pink and orange bubbles of star formation mark the face of the galaxy. ⁣

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Credit: NASA/ESA Hubble R. Chandar, J

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22 October 2023