NGC 5964 is a

barred spiral galaxy A barred spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars. Bars are found in about two thirds of all spiral galaxies, and generally affect both the motions of stars and interstellar gas within spiral galaxies ...

in the constellation

Serpens Caput Serpens ( grc, , , the Serpent) is a constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere. One of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, it remains one of the 88 modern constellations designated by the International ...

. NGC 5964 is also known by the names IC 4551 and PGC 55637. NGC 5964 has relatively unwound spiral arms; it lacks the clear defined spiral arms the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...

galaxy has. The central bar is very small, long and thin. NGC 5964 thus does not have a

galactic habitable zone In astrobiology and planetary astrophysics, the galactic habitable zone is the region of a galaxy in which life might most likely develop. The concept of a galactic habitable zone analyzes various factors, such as metallicity (the presence of elem ...

like the Milky Way.wikisky.org, NGC 5964
/ref> For the Milky Way, the galactic habitable zone is commonly believed to be an annulus with an outer radius of about 10

kiloparsec The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to or (au), i.e. . The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and ...

s and an inner radius close to the

Galactic Center The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact ra ...

, both of which lack hard boundaries.

References

External links

* * Barred spiral galaxies Serpens 5964 55637 09935 {{Spiral-galaxy-stub