NGC 3646 — Sc in Leo
Sc in Leo, 3.1 arcminutes across, its light 203 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3646
What you are looking at
NGC 3646 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 64° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 181,000 light-years, about 1.8 times 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. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1989; the most recent include SN 1989N, SN 1999cd. It is cited in 154 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 17 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 3646 today set out about 203 million years ago, when the first dinosaurs had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 4,249 km/s (9.5 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 3646 lies in Leo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 70° 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: NGC 3650 (0.6° away on the sky, at least 2,010,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 480 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 34836 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 3.09′ |
| Right ascension | 11h21m43.1s |
| Declination | +20°10′10.2″ |
| Constellation | Leo |
| Inclination | 63.9° |
| Light travel time | 203 million years |
| Bar | not recorded |
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 3.1 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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