Grus (The Crane) tagged posts

IC 5201 sits over 40 million light-years away from us. As with two thirds of all the spirals we see in the universe — including the Milky Way, the galaxy has a bar of stars slicing through its center. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

In 1900, astronomer Joseph Lunt made a discovery: Peering through a telescope at Cape Town Observatory, the British-South African scientist spotted this beautiful sight in the southern constellation of Grus (The Crane): a barred spiral galaxy now named IC 5201.

Over a century later, the galaxy is still of interest to astronomers. For this image, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope used its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to produce a beautiful and intricate image of the galaxy...