NGC 5878 — Sb in Libra
Sb in Libra, 3.3 arcminutes across, its light 96 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 5878
What you are looking at
NGC 5878 is a spiral with a sizeable central bulge and well-defined arms, close in type to the Milky Way. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 74° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 91,000 light-years, close to the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as an emission-line galaxy: its spectrum shows the glow of gas lit by young stars. It is cited in 95 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 14 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 96 million years. When it left, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,992 km/s (4.5 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 5878 lies in Libra. It is best placed on summer evenings: around 9:30 pm in June it stands about 36° 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 5892 (1.2° away on the sky, at least 1,980,000 light-years from it); NGC 5916A (2.2° away on the sky, at least 3,590,000 light-years from it); NGC 5916 (2.2° away on the sky, at least 3,670,000 light-years from it); NGC 5915 (2.2° away on the sky, at least 3,700,000 light-years from it).
By apparent size it is number 427 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 54364 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sb |
| Angular diameter | 3.27′ |
| Right ascension | 15h13m45.7s |
| Declination | -14°16′11.3″ |
| Constellation | Libra |
| Inclination | 73.8° |
| Light travel time | 96 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 3.3 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.
Take this galaxy — $1,290 Browse the Collection