NGC 3359 — Sc in Ursa Major
Sc in Ursa Major, 4.1 arcminutes across, its light 49 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3359
What you are looking at
NGC 3359 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. It is tilted about 47° 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 58,000 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 an emission-line galaxy: its spectrum shows the glow of gas lit by young stars. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1985H. It is cited in 387 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 19 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 3359 is light that left it about 49 million years ago; on Earth, the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,012 km/s (2.3 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
In the sky, NGC 3359 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 April.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: UGC 5846 (2.9° away on the sky, at least 2,430,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 230 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 32183 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 4.07′ |
| Right ascension | 10h46m36.8s |
| Declination | +63°13′26.9″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 47.2° |
| Light travel time | 49 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 4.1 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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