NGC 2903
Sign in to saveAlso known as New General Catalogue 2903
barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo
In the Vinony graph
Within Vinony's link graph, NGC 2903 is referenced by 442 other articles, and connects out to list of stars in Leo, light-year and parsec.
It sits within the topics Astronomical objects discovered in 1784, Barred spiral galaxies and Field galaxies.
Its subject is documented across 37 Wikipedia language editions.
Key facts
- Constellation
- Leo
- Right ascension
- 09 32 10.111
- Declination
- +21 ° 30 ′ 02.99 ″
- Redshift
- 556 ± 1 km/s
- Distance
- 30.4 Mly (9.33 Mpc )
- Group or cluster
- Virgo Supercluster
- Type
- SBbc or SAB(rs)bc
- Size
- 100,800 ly (30.91 kpc ) ( diameter; D 25 isophote )
- Apparent size v
- 11.48 ′ × 5.25 ′
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- astrophysical X-ray source
- Constellation
- Leo
- Distance from Earth
- 10.0
- Image
- NGC 2903 spiral galaxy.jpg
Show 11 more facts
- catalog code
- LEDA 27077
- Commons category
- NGC 2903
- time of discovery or invention
- 1784-11-16
- discoverer or inventor
- William Herschel
- redshift
- 0.001855
- galaxy morphological type
- SBbc
- apparent magnitude
- 6.036
- right ascension
- 143.0421292
- declination
- 21.5008306
- radial velocity
- 644
- epoch
- J2000.0
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
NGC 2903 is an isolated barred spiral galaxy in the equatorial constellation of Leo, positioned about 1.5° due south of Lambda Leonis. It was discovered by German-born astronomer William Herschel, who cataloged it on November 16, 1784. He mistook it as a double nebula, as did subsequent observers, and it wasn't until the nineteenth century that the Third Earl of Rosse resolved into a spiral form. J. L. E. Dreyer assigned it the identifiers 2903 and 2905 in his New General Catalogue; NGC 2905 now designates a luminous knot in the northeastern spiral arm.
This field galaxy is located about 30 million light-years away from the Milky Way, and is a member of the Virgo Supercluster. The morphological classification of this galaxy is SBbc, indicating a barred spiral (SB) with moderate to tightly-wound spiral arms (bc). De Vaucouleurs and associates assigned it the class SAB(rs)bc, suggesting a weaker bar structure (SAB) with a partial ring (rs). The bar structure appears stronger in the near infrared band. The galaxy as a whole is inclined by an angle of 60° to the line of sight from the Earth.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “NGC 2903” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.