NGC 3955 — S0-a in Crater
S0-a in Crater, 4.2 arcminutes across, its light 72 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 3955
What you are looking at
NGC 3955 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. We see it almost exactly edge-on, so its whole disc appears as one thin band of light, with dust showing as a dark line along its length. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 87,000 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 an emission-line galaxy: its spectrum shows the glow of gas lit by young stars. It is cited in 106 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 19 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 3955 today set out about 72 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,498 km/s (3.4 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 3955 lies in Crater. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in April it stands about 27° 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 3956 (2.6° away on the sky, at least 3,250,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 218 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 37320 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 4.15′ |
| Right ascension | 11h53m57.2s |
| Declination | -23°09′50.9″ |
| Constellation | Crater |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 72 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 4.2 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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