Discovered in 1900 by astronomer DeLisle Stewart and photographed here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, IC 4710 is an undeniably spectacular sight. The galaxy is a busy cloud of bright stars, with bright pockets (marking bursts of new star formation) scattered around its edges.
IC 4710 is an irregular dwarf galaxy. As the name suggests, these galaxies are irregular and chaotic in appearance, without central bulges or spiral arms; They are clearly different from spirals or ellipticals. It is thought that irregular galaxies may once have been spirals or ellipticals, but became distorted over time due to external gravitational forces during interactions or mergers with other galaxies. Irregular dwarfs in particular are important to our overall understanding of galactic evolution, as they are believed to be similar to the first galaxies to form in the Universe.
IC 4710 is located approximately 25 million light years away, in the southern constellation of Pavo (El Pavo Real). This constellation is located in the southern skies and also contains the third brightest globular cluster in the sky, NGC 6752, the spiral galaxy NGC 6744, and six known planetary systems (including HD 181433, which hosts a super Earth).
The data used to create this image was collected by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
Image credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Judy Schmidt
Explanation from: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1809a/
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