IC 3344

IC 3344

IC 3344 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices about 58 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 13,000 ly, about 13% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 1,375 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
58 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
13k ly
across
14.9
apparent magnitude
1,375 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 58 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 3344 as it looked roughly 58 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
IC 3331Elliptical1.8 million ly
apart
NGC 4459Lenticular1.9 million ly
apart
IC 3446Irregular2.5 million ly
apart
IC 3457Elliptical2.7 million ly
apart
IC 3413Elliptical2.8 million ly
apart
NGC 4540Spiral2.9 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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