IC 3987

IC 3987

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
486 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
69k ly
across
15.6
apparent magnitude

Because its light is 486 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 3987 as it looked roughly 486 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 4020Spiral4.1 million ly
apart
IC 3975Lenticular4.5 million ly
apart
IC 3919Elliptical5.6 million ly
apart
IC 3916Spiral7.6 million ly
apart
IC 4010Spiral7.7 million ly
apart
IC 3879Barred spiral9.1 million ly
apart
Worlds in the same direction on the sky

Source: structural data (position, morphology, brightness, redshift) from OpenNGC (CC BY-SA). Distance computed by gravityfinder from redshift via Hubble's law (H0 = 70 km/s/Mpc).

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