NGC 2996

NGC 2996

NGC 2996 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Hydra about 410 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 160,000 ly, about 1.6 times the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 8,775 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Lenticular
type · S0-a
410 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
162k ly
across
13.7
apparent magnitude
8,775 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 410 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 2996 as it looked roughly 410 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 3025Lenticular16 million ly
apart
NGC 2956Barred spiral45 million ly
apart
NGC 3141Spiral53 million ly
apart
NGC 3140Spiral54 million ly
apart
IC 542Lenticular67 million ly
apart
NGC 3133Barred spiral80 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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