NGC 2681 — S0-a in Ursa Major
S0-a in Ursa Major, 4.0 arcminutes across, its light 33 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 2681
What you are looking at
NGC 2681 is a lenticular galaxy: a disc galaxy that has largely used up the gas it needs to form new stars, so its disc is smooth and has no spiral arms. It faces us almost squarely, which shows its full structure at once. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 38,000 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 LINER galaxy: its nucleus shows the faint, low-level activity of a black hole feeding slowly. It is cited in 335 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 20 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 33 million years. When it left, Antarctica had begun to freeze. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 677 km/s (1.5 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
In the sky, NGC 2681 sits within the constellation Ursa Major. From most of the United States it never sets: it circles the north celestial pole all year, and stands highest on spring evenings, around March.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: UGC 4628 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 200,000 light-years from it); UGC 4499 (2.5° away on the sky, at least 1,410,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 245 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 24961 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 3.97′ |
| Right ascension | 08h53m32.7s |
| Declination | +51°18′49.6″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 0.0° |
| Light travel time | 33 million years |
| Bar | yes, from the catalogue |
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 4.0 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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