NGC 5073 — SBc in Virgo
SBc in Virgo, 3.8 arcminutes across, its light 131 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5073
What you are looking at
NGC 5073 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. A bar of stars runs straight across its centre, as one does across the centre of the Milky Way. 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 144,000 light-years, about 1.5 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. It is cited in 104 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 20 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 131 million years. When it left, the first birds had appeared. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,745 km/s (6.1 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 5073 sits within the constellation Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 35° 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: IC 4221 (0.3° away on the sky, at least 710,000 light-years from it); NGC 5105 (1.7° away on the sky, at least 3,980,000 light-years from it); NGC 5049 (1.8° away on the sky, at least 4,000,000 light-years from it); NGC 5031 (1.8° away on the sky, at least 4,120,000 light-years from it), and 5 more.
By apparent size it is number 279 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 46441 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SBc |
| Angular diameter | 3.78′ |
| Right ascension | 13h19m20.6s |
| Declination | -14°50′40.6″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 131 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 3.8 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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