NGC 5348 — SBbc in Virgo
SBbc in Virgo, 3.9 arcminutes across, its light 70 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5348
What you are looking at
NGC 5348 is a spiral of the same broad class astronomers give the Milky Way: a moderate bulge and clearly drawn arms. 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 78,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about 80% of the Milky Way’s width.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as one of a pair of galaxies. It is cited in 107 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 16 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 70 million years. When it left, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,450 km/s (3.2 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 5348 sits within the constellation Virgo. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 55° 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 5356 (0.2° away on the sky, at least 270,000 light-years from it); NGC 5360 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 530,000 light-years from it); NGC 5363 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 580,000 light-years from it); NGC 5364 (0.5° away on the sky, at least 660,000 light-years from it), and 3 more.
By apparent size it is number 259 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 49411 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SBbc |
| Angular diameter | 3.88′ |
| Right ascension | 13h54m11.3s |
| Declination | +05°13′38.2″ |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Inclination | 90.0° |
| Light travel time | 70 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 3.9 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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