NGC 3941 — S0 in Ursa Major
S0 in Ursa Major, 3.5 arcminutes across, its light 44 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3941
What you are looking at
NGC 3941 is a lenticular galaxy: a disc galaxy that has largely used up the gas it needs to form new stars, so its disc is smooth and has no spiral arms. It is tilted about 58° 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 45,000 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. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2018pv. It is cited in 264 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 18 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 3941 is light that left it about 44 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 914 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 3941 sits within the constellation Ursa Major. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 87° 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 3930 (1.1° away on the sky, at least 810,000 light-years from it); UGC 6955 (1.6° away on the sky, at least 1,190,000 light-years from it); UGC 6792 (2.9° away on the sky, at least 2,200,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 343 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 37235 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0 |
| Angular diameter | 3.51′ |
| Right ascension | 11h52m55.4s |
| Declination | +36°59′10.8″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 57.9° |
| Light travel time | 44 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 3.5 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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