NGC 2841 — SBb in Ursa Major
SBb in Ursa Major, 6.9 arcminutes across, its light 31 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 2841
NGC 2841 is the classic example of a flocculent spiral: its arms break into many short, feathery segments wrapped tightly around a large, smooth central region. It is one of the more massive spirals in our part of the universe.
What you are looking at
NGC 2841 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. A bar of stars runs straight across its centre, as one does across the centre of the Milky Way. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 65° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 61,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about half 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. Four supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1912; the most recent include SN 1957A, SN 1972R, SN 1999by. It is cited in 1,126 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 28 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 31 million years. When it left, Antarctica had begun to freeze. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 635 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 2841 lies in 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 5047 (1.2° away on the sky, at least 650,000 light-years from it); UGC 5076 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 1,000,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 49 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 26512 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SBb |
| Angular diameter | 6.90′ |
| Right ascension | 09h22m02.7s |
| Declination | +50°58′35.8″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 65.3° |
| Light travel time | 31 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 6.9 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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