NGC 3877 — Sc in Ursa Major
Sc in Ursa Major, 5.4 arcminutes across, its light 43 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3877
What you are looking at
NGC 3877 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 turned almost exactly side-on to us: the galaxy appears as a narrow blade of light, and its dust as a dark seam running along it. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 68,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 69% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a member of a group of galaxies. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 1998S. It is cited in 354 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 18 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 3877 today set out about 43 million years ago, when the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 902 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
In the sky, NGC 3877 sits within the constellation Ursa Major. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 83° high in the north, close to overhead, 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 3906 (1.1° away on the sky, at least 840,000 light-years from it); NGC 3896 (1.3° away on the sky, at least 960,000 light-years from it); NGC 3893 (1.3° away on the sky, at least 970,000 light-years from it); NGC 3949 (1.3° away on the sky, at least 1,000,000 light-years from it), and 14 more.
By apparent size it is number 104 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 36699 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 5.38′ |
| Right ascension | 11h46m07.8s |
| Declination | +47°29′41.0″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 83.5° |
| Light travel time | 43 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 5.4 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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