IC 3413

IC 3413

IC 3413 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo about 59 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 21,000 ly, about 21% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 1,002 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
59 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
21k ly
across
14.4
apparent magnitude
1,002 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 59 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 3413 as it looked roughly 59 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 3446Irregular980,000 ly
apart
IC 3361Elliptical1,000,000 ly
apart
IC 3457Elliptical1.5 million ly
apart
IC 3346Elliptical1.8 million ly
apart
IC 3331Elliptical1.9 million ly
apart
IC 3468Elliptical2.1 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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