M85 (NGC 4382) — S0-a in Coma Berenices
S0-a in Coma Berenices, 7.0 arcminutes across, its light 35 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About M85 (NGC 4382)
Messier 85 sits on the northern edge of the Virgo Cluster. It is a lenticular galaxy, and the faint shells and ripples of stars around it show that it has absorbed smaller galaxies in its past.
What you are looking at
M85 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 45° 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 70,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 71% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as one of a pair of galaxies. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1960; the most recent include SN 1960R, SN 2020nlb. It is cited in 683 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 30 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from M85 today set out about 35 million years ago, when the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 719 km/s (1.6 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, M85 sits within the constellation Coma Berenices. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 68° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
Its neighbours
It lies in the direction of the Virgo Cluster and at a matching speed, which places it among the cluster’s more than a thousand galaxies, the nearest large cluster to the Milky Way. At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: NGC 4394 (0.1° away on the sky, at least 80,000 light-years from it); IC 3292 (0.1° away on the sky, at least 90,000 light-years from it); NGC 4293 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 610,000 light-years from it); NGC 4336 (1.3° away on the sky, at least 790,000 light-years from it), and 4 more.
By apparent size it is number 46 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 40515 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 6.95′ |
| Right ascension | 12h25m24.0s |
| Declination | +18°11′24.6″ |
| Constellation | Coma Berenices |
| Inclination | 45.2° |
| Light travel time | 35 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 7.0 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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