MCG+01-02-015 is a

spiral galaxy Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''Pisces Pisces may refer to: * Pisces, an obsolete (because of land vertebrates) taxonomic superclass including all fish * Pisces (astrology), an astrological sign * Pisces (constellation), a constellation **Pisces Overdensity, an overdensity of stars in ...

. It is an example of a

void galaxy A void galaxy is a galaxy located in a cosmological void. Few galaxies exist in voids; most are located in sheets, walls and filaments that surround voids and supervoids.Astronomy and Astrophysics, "Results of a search for faint galaxies in vo ...

, and noted to be one of the loneliest galaxies spotted, with no other galaxy around 100 million light-years in all directions.

Observational history

MCG+01-02-015 was previously classified as an

elliptical galaxy An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The R ...

of class E2 although higher-resolution imaging has revealed it to be a

barred spiral galaxy A barred spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars. Bars are found in about two thirds of all spiral galaxies, and generally affect both the motions of stars and interstellar gas within spiral galaxi ...

Formation

It is theorised by many astrophysicists that void galaxies are the result of large galactic filaments being pulled on by the gravity of a neighboring

super cluster A supercluster is a large group of smaller galaxy clusters or galaxy groups; they are among the largest known structures in the universe. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group galaxy group (which contains more than 54 galaxies), which in turn ...

out of the less densely populated areas,

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

such as MCG+01-02-015 are left behind by events such as these.

References

Barred spiral galaxies Pisces (constellation) MCG objects {{Spiral-galaxy-stub