NGC 4571

NGC 4571
A spiral galaxy, seen face-on, fills the view. Swirling, patchy and broken spiral arms surround a softly glowing centre. The arms are filled with blue, speckled patches showing star clusters, shining pink and red dots where young stars are lighting up gas clouds, and a web of thin, dark red dust lanes. The glow of the galaxy's arms extends out into the dark background. Individual tiny stars appear throughout.
NGC 4571 imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
ConstellationComa Berenices
Right ascension12h 36m 56.3959s
Declination+14° 13′ 02.627″
Redshift0.001107±0.0000118
Heliocentric radial velocity332±4 km/s
Distance52.59 ± 1.66 Mly (16.124 ± 0.508 Mpc)
Apparent magnitude (V)11.8
Characteristics
TypeSA(r)d
Size~71,600 ly (21.96 kpc) (estimated)
Apparent size (V)3.6′ × 3.2′
Other designations
VCC 1696, IRAS 12344+1429, IC 3588, UGC 7788, MCG +02-32-156, PGC 42100, CGCG 070-194

NGC 4571 is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Coma Berenices. It was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 14 January 1787. It was also observed by German astronomer Friedrich Schwassmann on 23 November 1900, causing it to be listed in the Index Catalogue as IC 3588. John Dreyer thought this galaxy might be the "lost" Messier 91, but in 1969, amateur astronomer William C. Williams realized that M91 was actually NGC 4548.

Physical properties

The finding of Cepheids by the Canada France Hawaii Telescope in 1994 has established that this galaxy is a member of the Virgo Cluster.

Despite being classified as a late-type galaxy, NGC 4571 has features more typical of spiral galaxies of earlier Hubble type such as a high color index, both low star-formation rate and H-alpha brightness, and relatively little neutral hydrogen, suggesting it may have lost most of its gas due to interactions with Virgo's intragalactic medium and/or past interactions with other galaxies of the cluster.

The low-surface-brightness galaxy Malin 1 is located close to this object. It is totally unrelated, however, as it lies at a much higher distance.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Results for object NGC 4571". NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database. NASA and Caltech. Retrieved 2013-05-18.
  2. 1 2 Seligman, Courtney. "New General Catalogue Objects: NGC 4571". Celestial Atlas. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
  3. 1 2 Students for the Exploration and Development of Space Messier 91, accessed online 14 April 2011
  4. ↑ Kennicutt, R. C. Jr. (1983). "On the evolution of the spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster". The Astronomical Journal. 88: 483–488. Bibcode:1983AJ.....88..483K. doi:10.1086/113334.
  5. ↑ Kennicutt, R. C. Jr. (1985). "An H I and optical study of the gas poor Virgo cluster spiral NGC 4571". ESO Workshop on the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies, Garching, West Germany, September 4–7, 1984. 88: 91–94. Bibcode:1985ESOC...20...91K. doi:10.1086/113334.
  6. ↑ Kenney, J. D.; Young, J. S. (1986). "CO in H I-deficient Virgo cluster spiral galaxies". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 301: L13–L17. Bibcode:1986ApJ...301L..13K. doi:10.1086/184614.
  7. ↑ van der Hulst, J. M.; Skillman, E. D.; Kennicutt, R. C.; Bothun, G. D. (1987). "The neutral hydrogen content of red spiral galaxies". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 177: 63–70. Bibcode:1987A&A...177...63V.
  8. ↑ Bothun, Gregory D.; Impey, Christopher D.; Malin, David F.; Mould, Jeremy R. (1987). "Discovery of a huge low-surface-brightness galaxy - A protodisk galaxy at low redshift?". The Astronomical Journal. 94: 23–29. Bibcode:1987AJ.....94...23B. doi:10.1086/114443.