M58 (NGC 4579) — Sb in Virgo
Sb in Virgo, 5.0 arcminutes across, its light 73 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About M58 (NGC 4579)
Messier 58 is one of the brightest barred spirals in the Virgo Cluster. Its centre holds an active nucleus, and two supernovae have been seen in it.
What you are looking at
M58 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. It is tilted about 42° 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 106,000 light-years, close to the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a Seyfert galaxy: its nucleus is lit by gas falling into its central black hole, though dust hides part of that glow from us. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1988; the most recent include SN 1988A, SN 1989M. It is cited in 1,153 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 58 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from M58 today set out about 73 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,517 km/s (3.4 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
M58 lies in Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 62° 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 4606 (0.8° away on the sky, at least 1,010,000 light-years from it); NGC 4528 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 1,290,000 light-years from it); IC 3499 (1.3° away on the sky, at least 1,620,000 light-years from it); NGC 4584 (1.3° away on the sky, at least 1,650,000 light-years from it), and 7 more.
By apparent size it is number 126 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 42168 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 5.01′ |
| Right ascension | 12h37m43.5s |
| Declination | +11°49′05.3″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 41.9° |
| Light travel time | 73 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 5.0 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.
Take this galaxy — $1,290 Browse the Collection