IC 4255

IC 4255

IC 4255 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Hydra about 476 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 190,000 ly, about 1.9 times the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 10,173 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E-S0
476 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
185k ly
across
13.4
apparent magnitude
10,173 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 476 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 4255 as it looked roughly 476 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 4253Barred spiral4.5 million ly
apart
IC 4261Lenticular7.8 million ly
apart
IC 4260Spiral8.2 million ly
apart
IC 4286Barred spiral11 million ly
apart
IC 4289Elliptical17 million ly
apart
IC 4288Barred spiral18 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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