NGC 4710 — S0-a in Coma Berenices
S0-a in Coma Berenices, 4.4 arcminutes across, its light 53 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4710
NGC 4710 is a lenticular galaxy seen edge-on, with a bulge that in deep images takes on an X shape, a structure thought to grow from a bar seen from the side.
What you are looking at
NGC 4710 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 turned almost exactly side-on to us: the galaxy appears as a narrow blade of light, and its dust as a dark seam running along it. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 68,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 69% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as an HII galaxy, glowing with clouds of hydrogen lit by young stars. It is cited in 333 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 18 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 53 million years. When it left, the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,104 km/s (2.5 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, NGC 4710 sits within the constellation Coma Berenices. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 65° 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: IC 3806 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 290,000 light-years from it); NGC 4758 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 930,000 light-years from it); NGC 4651 (1.9° away on the sky, at least 1,740,000 light-years from it); IC 3742 (2.1° away on the sky, at least 1,930,000 light-years from it), and 5 more.
By apparent size it is number 175 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 43375 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | S0-a |
| Angular diameter | 4.38′ |
| Right ascension | 12h49m38.8s |
| Declination | +15°09′53.9″ |
| Constellation | Coma Berenices |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 53 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 4.4 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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