NGC 2538

NGC 2538

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Barred spiral
type · SBa
185 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
85k ly
across
13.8
apparent magnitude

Because its light is 185 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 2538 as it looked roughly 185 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 2561Barred spiral11 million ly
apart
IC 503Spiral12 million ly
apart
IC 504Lenticular13 million ly
apart
NGC 2470Spiral16 million ly
apart
NGC 2510Lenticular20 million ly
apart
IC 502Elliptical21 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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