[3] Discovered by astronomer William Herschel on April 27, 1785,[4] NGC 3862 is an outlying member of the Leo Cluster.

[11][3] The optical jet, which has a measured length of 2,800 ly (860 pc), appears to expand slowly and dims in peak and integrated brightness within the interior of the apparent ring of dust.

At this distance, filaments and pronounced kinks can be observed which suggests that the jet is oscillating or evolving a helical structure.

[14] After crossing the ring at a distance of around 980–1,300 ly (300–400 pc), the jet widens dramatically, changes direction, and dims more rapidly both in peak and integrated brightness and becomes more diffuse in appearance.

[12] However, Perlman et al. suggests that the disk and the jet occupy physically distinct regions of the galaxy and therefore are not interacting.

[22] The central region of NGC 3862 appears host a nearly face-on disk of dust[23][24][12][25] with a diameter of 2,200 ly (675 pc).