NGC 2488

NGC 2488

NGC 2488 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Lynx about 401 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 170,000 ly, about 1.7 times the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 8,598 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E-S0
401 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
169k ly
across
12.4
apparent magnitude
8,598 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 401 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 2488 as it looked roughly 401 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 2462Lenticular8.2 million ly
apart
NGC 2468Lenticular12 million ly
apart
NGC 2497Elliptical15 million ly
apart
NGC 2463Elliptical16 million ly
apart
NGC 2456Elliptical49 million ly
apart
NGC 2505Barred spiral58 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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