Right ascension 00 48 47.14154 Type S0-a Distance 1.911026737 × 10^24 m Constellation Andromeda | Declination +31° 57′ 25.08″ Apparent size (V) 1,1' × 1,1' Magnitude 13.1 Apparent magnitude (V) 13.1 | |
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Similar NGC 108, NGC 86, NGC 72, NGC 49, NGC 79 | ||
NGC 262 (also known as Markarian 348) is a huge spiral galaxy in the cluster LGG 14. It is a Seyfert 2 spiral galaxy located 202 million light years away in the constellation Andromeda. It was discovered in September 17, 1885 by Lewis A. Swift.
Size
This galaxy has an apparent diameter of approximately 1.3 million light-years, occupying 1.1' of the Earth's sky. It holds approximately 15 trillion stars. NGC 262 was tidally disturbed by the gravitational forces of smaller galaxies, which resulted in its large size.
NGC 262 is very unusual, since it is 10 times larger than a regular spiral galaxy of its type. According to Morris and Wannier, NGC 262 is surrounded by a huge cloud of neutral hydrogen that is probably caused by the tidal stripping of smaller galaxies. The cloud has an apparent mass of approximately 50 billion solar masses at a distance of 88 kiloparsecs (287,000 light years) from the nucleus of NGC 262 and extending up to 300 kiloparsecs (1 million light years) away. The cloud is spiral shaped with at least one arm, and possibly another one extending throughout the galaxy.