NGC 4441 — S0-a in Draco
S0-a in Draco, 4.1 arcminutes across, its light 128 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4441
What you are looking at
NGC 4441 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 50° 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 153,000 light-years, about 1.6 times the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a member of a group of galaxies. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2019yvq. It is cited in 88 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 15 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 4441 today set out about 128 million years ago, when the first flowering plants had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,663 km/s (6.0 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 4441 lies in Draco. From most of the United States it never sets: it circles the north celestial pole all year, and stands highest on spring evenings, around May.
Its neighbours
At almost the same distance from us, and so its neighbours in space as well as on the sky: UGC 7730 (0.8° away on the sky, at least 1,680,000 light-years from it); NGC 4481 (0.8° away on the sky, at least 1,800,000 light-years from it); NGC 4521 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 2,320,000 light-years from it); UGC 7700 (1.1° away on the sky, at least 2,400,000 light-years from it), and 8 more.
By apparent size it is number 223 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 40836 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 4.13′ |
| Right ascension | 12h27m20.4s |
| Declination | +64°48′05.5″ |
| Constellation | Draco |
| Inclination | 50.3° |
| Light travel time | 128 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 4.1 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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