NGC 4026 — S0 in Ursa Major
S0 in Ursa Major, 4.4 arcminutes across, its light 47 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4026
What you are looking at
NGC 4026 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 59,000 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 one of a pair of galaxies. It is cited in 294 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 16 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 4026 is light that left it about 47 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 970 km/s (2.2 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 4026 lies in Ursa Major. From most of the United States it never sets: it circles the north celestial pole all year, and stands highest on spring evenings, around April.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: UGC 6992 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 280,000 light-years from it); UGC 6922 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 350,000 light-years from it); UGC 6917 (0.7° away on the sky, at least 580,000 light-years from it); NGC 4088 (1.1° away on the sky, at least 860,000 light-years from it), and 23 more.
By apparent size it is number 174 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 37760 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0 |
| Angular diameter | 4.38′ |
| Right ascension | 11h59m25.1s |
| Declination | +50°57′42.1″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 47 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 4.4 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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