NGC 1646

NGC 1646

NGC 1646 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Eridanus about 224 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 97,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. The light reaching us tonight left it about 224 million years ago.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E-S0
224 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
97k ly
across
13.6
apparent magnitude

Because its light is 224 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 1646 as it looked roughly 224 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
NGC 1648Lenticular3.6 million ly
apart
IC 389Elliptical5.4 million ly
apart
IC 390Lenticular8.1 million ly
apart
IC 384Elliptical8.6 million ly
apart
NGC 1632Lenticular10 million ly
apart
NGC 1614Barred spiral10 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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