NGC 4939 — Sbc in Virgo
Sbc in Virgo, 5.7 arcminutes across, its light 149 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 4939
What you are looking at
NGC 4939 is a spiral of the same broad class astronomers give the Milky Way: a moderate bulge and clearly drawn arms. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 70° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 246,000 light-years, about 2.5 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. Five supernovae have been recorded in it, the first in 1968; the most recent include SN 2008aw, SN 2014B, SN 2020nif. It is cited in 337 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 30 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 4939 is light that left it about 149 million years ago; on Earth, the first birds had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 3,111 km/s (7.0 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 4939 lies in Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 40° 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 4925 (2.7° away on the sky, at least 6,930,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 89 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 45170 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sbc |
| Angular diameter | 5.71′ |
| Right ascension | 13h04m14.4s |
| Declination | -10°20′22.4″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 70.1° |
| Light travel time | 149 million years |
| Bar | not recorded |
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 5.7 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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