NGC 173

NGC 173

NGC 173 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus about 205 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 120,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 4,358 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Spiral
type · Sc
205 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
125k ly
across
13.4
apparent magnitude
4,358 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 205 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 173 as it looked roughly 205 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 201Spiral4.5 million ly
apart
NGC 192Spiral5.0 million ly
apart
NGC 170Elliptical5.4 million ly
apart
NGC 197Lenticular7.5 million ly
apart
NGC 193Elliptical7.8 million ly
apart
NGC 130Elliptical7.8 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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