NGC 918 — Sc in Aries
Sc in Aries, 3.1 arcminutes across, its light 72 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 918
What you are looking at
NGC 918 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 58° 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 65,000 light-years, about half the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
SIMBAD, the reference database astronomers use, classes it as a galaxy with an active nucleus, powered by its central black hole. One supernova has been recorded in it: SN 2009js. It is cited in 159 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 26 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
What a telescope records of NGC 918 is light that left it about 72 million years ago; on Earth, dinosaurs were at their peak. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 1,508 km/s (3.4 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe.
Finding it in the sky
NGC 918 lies in Aries. It is best placed on winter evenings: around 9:30 pm in December it stands about 68° high in the south, seen from the middle of the United States.
By apparent size it is number 478 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 9236 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | Sc |
| Angular diameter | 3.09′ |
| Right ascension | 02h25m50.8s |
| Declination | +18°29′46.4″ |
| Constellation | Aries |
| Inclination | 57.6° |
| Light travel time | 72 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 3.1 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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