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
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.
apartNGC 2956Barred spiral45 million ly
apartNGC 3141Spiral53 million ly
apartNGC 3140Spiral54 million ly
apartIC 542Lenticular67 million ly
apartNGC 3133Barred spiral80 million ly
apart
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).