NGC 4725 — SABa in Coma Berenices
SABa in Coma Berenices, 9.7 arcminutes across, its light 58 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4725
NGC 4725 is an unusual barred spiral with a large ring around its bar and what appears to be a single dominant spiral arm. It is one of the galaxies the Hubble Space Telescope studied to measure the distance scale of the universe: individual pulsating stars, Cepheids, were measured in it to fix how far away it lies.
What you are looking at
NGC 4725 is an early-type spiral: a large, bright central bulge wrapped in smooth, tightly wound arms. A weak bar of stars crosses its centre. It is tilted about 45° 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 164,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 1.7 times 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. Three supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1940; the most recent include SN 1940B, SN 1969H, SN 1999gs. It is cited in 735 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 31 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 4725 is light that left it about 58 million years ago; on Earth, an asteroid had ended the age of dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,208 km/s (2.7 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 4725 sits within the constellation Coma Berenices. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 76° 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 4747 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 410,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 19 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 43451 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABa |
| Angular diameter | 9.71′ |
| Right ascension | 12h50m26.6s |
| Declination | +25°30′02.7″ |
| Constellation | Coma Berenices |
| Inclination | 45.4° |
| Light travel time | 58 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 9.7 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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