NGC 3027 — Sc in Ursa Major
Sc in Ursa Major, 3.4 arcminutes across, its light 51 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3027
What you are looking at
NGC 3027 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 70° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 49,000 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
Boris Vorontsov-Velyaminov listed it as VV 358 in his catalogue of interacting galaxies. It is cited in 126 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 18 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 51 million years. When it left, the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,058 km/s (2.4 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 3027 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: NGC 2985 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 370,000 light-years from it); UGC 5455 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 1,670,000 light-years from it); UGC 5612 (2.6° away on the sky, at least 2,310,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 400 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 28636 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 3.35′ |
| Right ascension | 09h55m40.5s |
| Declination | +72°12′13.1″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 69.9° |
| Light travel time | 51 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 3.4 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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