IC 490
IC 490
IC 490 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cancer about 831 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 140,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. The light reaching us tonight left it about 831 million years ago.
Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph
Barred spiral
type · Sbc
831 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
143k ly
across
15.7
apparent magnitude
Because its light is 831 million ly from home, you are seeing IC 490 as it looked roughly 831 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 2374Barred spiral120 million ly
apartIC 2380Lenticular140 million ly
apartIC 2234Elliptical160 million ly
apartIC 2378Elliptical160 million ly
apartNGC 2647Lenticular160 million ly
apartIC 2383Elliptical190 million ly
apart
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→apartIC 2380Lenticular140 million ly
apartIC 2234Elliptical160 million ly
apartIC 2378Elliptical160 million ly
apartNGC 2647Lenticular160 million ly
apartIC 2383Elliptical190 million ly
apart
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).