IC 2487

IC 2487

IC 2487 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo about 202 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 110,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 4,294 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Barred spiral
type · Sb
202 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
108k ly
across
14.1
apparent magnitude
4,294 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 202 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 2487 as it looked roughly 202 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 2933Barred spiral13 million ly
apart
NGC 2896Lenticular14 million ly
apart
NGC 2751Barred spiral22 million ly
apart
NGC 2749Elliptical22 million ly
apart
NGC 2747Lenticular22 million ly
apart
NGC 2862Barred spiral26 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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