NGC 5448 — Sa in Ursa Major
Sa in Ursa Major, 3.8 arcminutes across, its light 97 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5448
What you are looking at
NGC 5448 is an early-type spiral: a large, bright central bulge wrapped in smooth, tightly wound arms. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 64° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 105,000 light-years, close to 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. It is cited in 180 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 16 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 5448 today set out about 97 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 2,014 km/s (4.5 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 5448 sits within the constellation Ursa Major. It is best placed on spring evenings: around 9:30 pm in May it stands about 81° high in the north, close to overhead, 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: UGC 8936 (0.4° away on the sky, at least 630,000 light-years from it); NGC 5425 (0.8° away on the sky, at least 1,350,000 light-years from it); UGC 9056 (1.1° away on the sky, at least 1,810,000 light-years from it); NGC 5480 (1.7° away on the sky, at least 2,780,000 light-years from it), and 4 more.
By apparent size it is number 281 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 50031 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sa |
| Angular diameter | 3.77′ |
| Right ascension | 14h02m50.0s |
| Declination | +49°10′21.5″ |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Inclination | 64.4° |
| Light travel time | 97 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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