IC 4426

IC 4426

IC 4426 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Boötes about 720 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 140,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 14,853 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
720 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
144k ly
across
15.6
apparent magnitude
14,853 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 720 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 4426 as it looked roughly 720 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 4429Elliptical16 million ly
apart
IC 4434Elliptical21 million ly
apart
IC 1004Elliptical22 million ly
apart
IC 4440Lenticular22 million ly
apart
IC 4439Spiral24 million ly
apart
IC 4438Barred spiral27 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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