IC 3631

IC 3631

IC 3631 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Virgo about 132 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 41,000 ly, about 41% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 2,839 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Lenticular
type · S0-a
132 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
41k ly
across
14.2
apparent magnitude
2,839 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 132 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 3631 as it looked roughly 132 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 3611Spiral1.2 million ly
apart
NGC 4779Barred spiral11 million ly
apart
IC 3475Elliptical12 million ly
apart
NGC 4388Barred spiral14 million ly
apart
NGC 4803Elliptical15 million ly
apart
NGC 4795Barred spiral15 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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