NGC 5078
Spiral galaxy in the constellation Hydra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NGC 5078 is a spiral galaxy in the Hydra constellation, approximately 94 million light-years away from Earth.[2] It has a diameter of 127,000 light-years.[3] It was discoverd by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 28 March 1786.[4][5]
| NGC 5078 | |
|---|---|
Legacy surveys image of NGC 5078 and IC 879 | |
| Observation data (J2000 epoch) | |
| Constellation | Hydra |
| Right ascension | 13h 19m 50.0110s[1] |
| Declination | −27° 24′ 37.015″[1] |
| Redshift | 2168 ± 6 km/s[1] |
| Distance | 94 Mly[2] |
| Group or cluster | NGC 5061 group (LGG 341) |
| Apparent magnitude (V) | +11.8[1] |
| Characteristics | |
| Type | SA(s)a[1] |
| Apparent size (V) | 4′.0 × 1′.9[1] |
| Other designations | |
| ESO 508- G 048, IRAS 13170-2708, MCG -04-32-001, PGC 46490[1] | |
The dust lane of NGC 5078 is warped, probably by interaction with the nearby galaxy IC 879, which is itself distorted into an 'S' shape by the interaction.[6] At the presumed distance the two galaxies would have a minimal separation of about 61,000 light-years.[3] For comparison, the Large Magellanic Cloud is about 160,000 light-years from the Milky Way.
NGC 5078 is also only separated in the sky from the spiral galaxy NGC 5101 by about 0.5 degrees, and both are believed to be at the same distance from the Earth. This would mean they are approximately 800,000 light-years apart.[7]
