NGC 1003 — Sc in Perseus
Sc in Perseus, 3.5 arcminutes across, its light 30 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 1003
What you are looking at
NGC 1003 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. We see it almost exactly edge-on, so its whole disc appears as one thin band of light, with dust showing as a dark line along its length. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 30,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about a third the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a member of a group of galaxies. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1937D. It is cited in 201 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 18 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 1003 is light that left it about 30 million years ago; on Earth, Antarctica had begun to freeze. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 625 km/s (1.4 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe. For a galaxy this close, its own motion through space is a large share of that speed, so the distance worked out from it is approximate; distances measured from individual stars in it can differ.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 1003 lies in Perseus. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 89° high in the north, close to overhead, seen from the middle of the United States.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: UGC 2034 (1.1° away on the sky, at least 580,000 light-years from it); NGC 1023 (1.8° away on the sky, at least 960,000 light-years from it); NGC 1023A (1.8° away on the sky, at least 960,000 light-years from it); IC 239 (2.0° away on the sky, at least 1,040,000 light-years from it), and 3 more.
By apparent size it is number 353 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 10052 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 3.47′ |
| Right ascension | 02h39m16.7s |
| Declination | +40°52′21.0″ |
| Constellation | Perseus |
| Inclination | 80.7° |
| Light travel time | 30 million years |
| Bar | not recorded |
Check every figure above in the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
What is sold
A print of this galaxy and the record of the calculation, once. When it sells it leaves the register and is not offered again. We assign no names and no ownership — nobody can sell you those.
At 3.5 arcminutes this is a Exceptional galaxy, which is the tier where a real photograph shows clear structure and dust lanes. The tier comes from the measured diameter, not from a price list.
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