NGC 4941 — SABa in Virgo
SABa in Virgo, 3.4 arcminutes across, its light 53 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4941
What you are looking at
NGC 4941 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 37° 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 52,000 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 Seyfert galaxy: its nucleus is lit by gas falling into its central black hole, though dust hides part of that glow from us. It is cited in 420 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 38 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 4941 today set out about 53 million years ago, when the planet had come through its hottest interval since the dinosaurs. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,111 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 4941 sits within the constellation Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 44° 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 4951 (1.0° away on the sky, at least 900,000 light-years from it); NGC 4813 (2.3° away on the sky, at least 2,120,000 light-years from it); NGC 4948 (2.4° away on the sky, at least 2,240,000 light-years from it); NGC 4958 (2.5° away on the sky, at least 2,330,000 light-years from it), and 1 more.
By apparent size it is number 398 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 45165 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABa |
| Angular diameter | 3.36′ |
| Right ascension | 13h04m13.1s |
| Declination | -05°33′05.8″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 36.6° |
| 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 3.4 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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