NGC 4666 — SABc in Virgo
SABc in Virgo, 5.0 arcminutes across, its light 73 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4666
NGC 4666 is an edge-on spiral with intense star formation, which drives a superwind of hot gas out of its disc. It is sometimes called a starburst galaxy.
What you are looking at
NGC 4666 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. A weak bar of stars crosses its centre. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 70° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 105,000 light-years, close to the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a galaxy with an active nucleus, powered by its central black hole. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1965; the most recent include SN 1965H, SN 2019yvr. It is cited in 434 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 36 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 4666 today set out about 73 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,518 km/s (3.4 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 4666 sits within the constellation Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 50° 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 4668 (0.1° away on the sky, at least 150,000 light-years from it); NGC 4632 (0.8° away on the sky, at least 960,000 light-years from it); UGC 7911 (0.9° away on the sky, at least 1,200,000 light-years from it); NGC 4753 (2.0° away on the sky, at least 2,480,000 light-years from it), and 7 more.
By apparent size it is number 129 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 42975 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABc |
| Angular diameter | 4.97′ |
| Right ascension | 12h45m08.6s |
| Declination | -00°27′42.8″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 69.6° |
| 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.
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