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3C 285

galaxy

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ4177029
Source-derived summary

3C 285 is a radio galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is located about 1 billion light years away. It is a Fanaroff-Riley 2 radio galaxy and is hosted in a disturbed spiral galaxy.

3C 285 is the brightest member of a small galaxy group. Its morphology is peculiar, with an S-shaped envelope that points to another galaxy of the group, located to the northwest. A gas filament 26 arcseconds long extends towards that galaxy. In optical and ultraviolet observations the galaxy features dust lanes, two across the galaxy and one perpendicular to them that also obscures part of the nucleus. Along the edges of the dust lanes knots of elevated ultraviolet emission indicate locations of where new stars are formed. In the centre of 3C 285 lies a supermassive black hole whose mass is estimated to be 107.70±0.10 (40-63 million) M☉ based on stellar velocity dispersion.

When observed in radiowaves, 3C 285 has two lobes with filamentary structures in them, and a jet is visible in the eastern lobe.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “3C 285” is galaxy. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through galaxy, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 172-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, galaxy is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “galaxy” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4177029. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “3C 285”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 3C 285 primary sources, 3C 285 archive and galaxy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “3C 285”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 3C 285” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.