IC 4259

IC 4259

IC 4259 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Hydra about 663 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 14,196 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Barred spiral
type · SBab
663 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
191k ly
across
15.4
apparent magnitude
14,196 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 663 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 4259 as it looked roughly 663 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 4294Barred spiral27 million ly
apart
IC 4252Elliptical45 million ly
apart
IC 4265Spiral62 million ly
apart
IC 4273Lenticular66 million ly
apart
IC 4279Barred spiral92 million ly
apart
IC 4281Spiral99 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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