NGC 4203 — E-S0 in Coma Berenices
E-S0 in Coma Berenices, 3.4 arcminutes across, its light 51 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4203
What you are looking at
NGC 4203 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. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 51,000 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 LINER galaxy: its nucleus shows the faint, low-level activity of a black hole feeding slowly. It is cited in 519 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 41 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 4203 is light that left it about 51 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 1,071 km/s (2.4 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 4203 lies in Coma Berenices. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 83° 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 4359 (2.5° away on the sky, at least 2,290,000 light-years from it); NGC 4062 (2.7° away on the sky, at least 2,390,000 light-years from it); UGC 7257 (2.8° away on the sky, at least 2,480,000 light-years from it); UGC 7007 (2.8° away on the sky, at least 2,540,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 376 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 39158 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | E-S0 |
| Angular diameter | 3.42′ |
| Right ascension | 12h15m05.0s |
| Declination | +33°11′50.2″ |
| Constellation | Coma Berenices |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 51 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 3.4 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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