NGC 2991

NGC 2991

NGC 2991 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Leo about 347 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 100,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 7,455 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Lenticular
type · S0
347 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
100k ly
across
12.6
apparent magnitude
7,455 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 347 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 2991 as it looked roughly 347 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 2994Lenticular1.2 million ly
apart
NGC 2988Barred spiral10 million ly
apart
NGC 2931Barred spiral15 million ly
apart
NGC 2929Barred spiral15 million ly
apart
NGC 2927Barred spiral17 million ly
apart
NGC 3088BBarred spiral21 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).

← all galaxies