NGC 578 — Sc in Cetus
Sc in Cetus, 4.8 arcminutes across, its light 78 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 578
What you are looking at
NGC 578 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. It is tilted about 54° to our line of sight, enough to show both the shape of its arms and the depth of its disc. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 109,000 light-years, close to the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
It is cited in 179 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 20 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
The light that reaches us from NGC 578 today set out about 78 million years ago, when dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,628 km/s (3.6 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 578 sits within the constellation Cetus. It is best placed on autumn evenings: around 9:30 pm in November it stands about 27° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
By apparent size it is number 135 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 5619 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 4.82′ |
| Right ascension | 01h30m28.5s |
| Declination | -22°40′01.9″ |
| Constellation | Cetus |
| Inclination | 54.4° |
| Light travel time | 78 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 4.8 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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