Mice Galaxies (NGC 4676A) — S0-a in Coma Berenices
The Mice Galaxies (NGC 4676A) as a framed fine art print. S0-a in Coma Berenices, 2.2 arcminutes across, its light 311 million years old. Measured by…
About Mice Galaxies (NGC 4676A)
The Mice are two galaxies in the middle of a collision, each with a long tail of stars thrown out by the encounter, which gives the pair its name. Hubble's image of the Mice was one of the first released from its Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002. In time the two will merge into a single galaxy.
What you are looking at
NGC 4676A 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. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 64° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 194,000 light-years, about 2.0 times 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. Halton Arp included it in his 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 242, a list of galaxies with unusual, disturbed shapes. Boris Vorontsov-Velyaminov listed it as VV 224 in his catalogue of interacting galaxies. It is cited in 287 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 4676A today set out about 311 million years ago, when giant insects flew over coal forests. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 6,566 km/s (14.7 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 4676A lies in Coma Berenices. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 81° 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: IC 821 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 5,290,000 light-years from it); UGC 8025 (2.0° away on the sky, at least 10,980,000 light-years from it); UGC 7882 (2.7° away on the sky, at least 14,270,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 1,245 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 43062 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 2.16′ |
| Right ascension | 12h46m10.1s |
| Declination | +30°43′55.1″ |
| Constellation | Coma Berenices |
| Inclination | 64.4° |
| Light travel time | 311 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 2.2 arcminutes this is a Rare galaxy, which is the tier where a real photograph shows its arms and its core. The tier comes from the measured diameter, not from a price list.
Take this galaxy — $790 Browse the Collection