The disk of NGC 4452 looks unusually thin because we see it exactly edge-on. Most spirals have relatively thin disks, but we see them at an angle, making the disk appear thicker. One truly unusual aspect of NGC 4452 is that its disk has relatively little dust, so its stellar contents are not obscured by dust lanes. In addition, it has a very small central bulge, or nucleus. The nucleus is usually much thicker than the disk, but in this case it barely pokes above or below the plane of the disk. The negligible bulge of its nucleus and the lack of any dust lanes suggests that NGC 4452 might not exhibit a spiral structure even if seen from above (since such structures are outlined by the light of hot young stars recently formed from clouds of gas and dust within the spiral arms). NGC 4425's recessional velocity of 165 km/sec is too small in comparison to peculiar (non-Hubble expansion) velocities to estimate its distance; but redshift-independent distance estimates place it about 50 to 55 million light years away, on the near side of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, the nearest large cluster to us. Given that and its apparent size of 2.55 by 0.8 arcmin, it is about 40 thousand light years across.

Part of Markarian's Chain, a group of Virgo Cluster galaxies which lie along a smooth curve and have similar radial velocities.

Part of Markarian's Chain, a group of Virgo Cluster galaxies which lie along a smooth curve and have similar radial velocities.

Part of Markarian's Chain, a group of Virgo Cluster galaxies which lie along a smooth curve and have similar radial velocities.

Part of Markarian's Chain, a group of Virgo Cluster galaxies which lie along a smooth curve and have similar radial velocities.