NGC 3486 — Sc in Leo Minor
Sc in Leo Minor, 5.8 arcminutes across, its light 33 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3486
NGC 3486 is a face-on spiral in Leo Minor with a small bar and arms lined with star-forming regions.
What you are looking at
NGC 3486 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 46° 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 55,000 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 a Seyfert galaxy: its nucleus is lit by gas falling into its central black hole, though dust hides part of that glow from us. It is cited in 379 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 20 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 33 million years. When it left, Antarctica had begun to freeze. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 681 km/s (1.5 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 3486 lies in Leo Minor. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 79° 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: UGC 6102 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 240,000 light-years from it); NGC 3510 (0.7° away on the sky, at least 420,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 85 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 33166 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 5.82′ |
| Right ascension | 11h00m24.0s |
| Declination | +28°58′29.9″ |
| Constellation | Leo Minor |
| Inclination | 46.0° |
| Light travel time | 33 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 5.8 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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