IC 171

IC 171

IC 171 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Triangulum about 249 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 160,000 ly, about 1.6 times the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 5,275 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Lenticular
type · S0-a
249 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
163k ly
across
13.7
apparent magnitude
5,275 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 249 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 171 as it looked roughly 249 million years ago. The photons left before that much of history had passed, and are only now reaching us. This distance is estimated from the galaxy's redshift, so the lookback time is approximate.

Nearest galaxies
NGC 712Lenticular7.2 million ly
apart
NGC 750Elliptical9.9 million ly
apart
NGC 751Elliptical10 million ly
apart
NGC 653Spiral12 million ly
apart
NGC 687Lenticular12 million ly
apart
NGC 703Elliptical13 million ly
apart
Worlds in the same direction on the sky

Source: structural data (position, morphology, brightness, redshift) from OpenNGC (CC BY-SA). Recession velocity from RC3 (de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991, via NASA/HEASARC, public domain). Distance computed by gravityfinder from redshift via Hubble's law (H0 = 70 km/s/Mpc).

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