NGC 3003 — Sbc in Leo Minor
Sbc in Leo Minor, 4.7 arcminutes across, its light 71 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3003
What you are looking at
NGC 3003 is a spiral of the same broad class astronomers give the Milky Way: a moderate bulge and clearly drawn arms. 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 98,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), close to the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as an emission-line galaxy: its spectrum shows the glow of gas lit by young stars. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1961F. It is cited in 230 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 23 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 71 million years. When it left, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,480 km/s (3.3 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 3003 lies in Leo Minor. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in March it stands about 83° high in the south, 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: NGC 3021 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 630,000 light-years from it); NGC 2968 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 2,320,000 light-years from it); NGC 2964 (2.0° away on the sky, at least 2,450,000 light-years from it); NGC 3067 (2.3° away on the sky, at least 2,850,000 light-years from it), and 1 more.
By apparent size it is number 143 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 28186 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sbc |
| Angular diameter | 4.74′ |
| Right ascension | 09h48m35.6s |
| Declination | +33°25′17.3″ |
| Constellation | Leo Minor |
| Inclination | 87.0° |
| Light travel time | 71 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 4.7 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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