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IC 5332 is an SABc-type galaxy in the De Vaucouleurs system of galaxy classification. The ‘S’ identifies it as a spiral galaxy, which it clearly is, given its well-defined arms of bright stars and darker dust that curl outwards from the galaxy’s dense and bright core. The ‘AB’ designation is a little more complex. It means that the galaxy is weakly barred, which refers to the shape of the galaxy’s center. 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 an intermediate spiral galaxy on many fronts: weakly barred, with quite loosely wound arms, and almost completely face-on!
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