NGC 4772 — SABa in Virgo
SABa in Virgo, 4.1 arcminutes across, its light 50 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4772
What you are looking at
NGC 4772 is an early-type spiral: a large, bright central bulge wrapped in smooth, tightly wound arms. A weak bar of stars crosses its centre. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 67° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 60,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about half the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a LINER galaxy: its nucleus shows the faint, low-level activity of a black hole feeding slowly. Two supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1988; the most recent include SN 1988E, SN 2012cu. It is cited in 268 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 21 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 50 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 1,038 km/s (2.3 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
NGC 4772 lies in Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 52° 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 4809 (0.6° away on the sky, at least 520,000 light-years from it); NGC 4771 (0.9° away on the sky, at least 780,000 light-years from it); UGC 7991 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 870,000 light-years from it); UGC 7982 (1.1° away on the sky, at least 990,000 light-years from it), and 13 more.
By apparent size it is number 224 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 43798 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABa |
| Angular diameter | 4.12′ |
| Right ascension | 12h53m29.2s |
| Declination | +02°10′06.1″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 67.3° |
| Light travel time | 50 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 4.1 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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