M96 (NGC 3368) — Sab in Leo
Sab in Leo, 8.3 arcminutes across, its light 43 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About M96 (NGC 3368)
Messier 96 is the brightest galaxy in the Leo I group. Its arms are slightly lopsided and its core is offset from the centre of its disc, a sign that its neighbours have tugged at it. A supernova appeared in it in 1998, and it has been used to measure the distance of the Leo I group.
What you are looking at
M96 is an early-type spiral: a large, bright central bulge wrapped in smooth, tightly wound arms. It is tilted about 51° 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 103,000 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 one of a pair of galaxies. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1998bu. It is cited in 874 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 25 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of M96 is light that left it about 43 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 892 km/s (2.0 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
M96 lies in 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: M95 (0.7° away on the sky, at least 520,000 light-years from it); NGC 3384 (0.9° away on the sky, at least 670,000 light-years from it); NGC 3412 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 1,410,000 light-years from it); UGC 5832 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 1,420,000 light-years from it), and 3 more.
By apparent size it is number 26 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 32192 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sab |
| Angular diameter | 8.26′ |
| Right ascension | 10h46m45.7s |
| Declination | +11°49′11.7″ |
| Constellation | Leo |
| Inclination | 51.1° |
| Light travel time | 43 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 8.3 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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