M95 (NGC 3351) — Sb in Leo
Sb in Leo, 7.2 arcminutes across, its light 37 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About M95 (NGC 3351)
Messier 95 is a barred spiral in the Leo I group with a bright ring of star formation around its nucleus. A supernova, SN 2012aw, appeared in it in 2012 and was widely observed by amateur astronomers.
What you are looking at
M95 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. It is tilted about 55° to our line of sight, enough to show both the shape of its arms and the depth of its disc. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 79,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 80% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as one of a pair of galaxies. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2012aw. It is cited in 1,268 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 22 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from M95 today set out about 37 million years ago, when the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 778 km/s (1.7 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, M95 sits within the constellation Leo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 62° 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: M96 (0.7° away on the sky, at least 450,000 light-years from it); NGC 3384 (1.4° away on the sky, at least 920,000 light-years from it); NGC 3299 (2.1° away on the sky, at least 1,370,000 light-years from it); NGC 3412 (2.4° away on the sky, at least 1,570,000 light-years from it), and 1 more.
By apparent size it is number 40 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 32007 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 7.23′ |
| Right ascension | 10h43m57.7s |
| Declination | +11°42′13.3″ |
| Constellation | Leo |
| Inclination | 54.6° |
| Light travel time | 37 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 7.2 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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