NGC 3087

NGC 3087

NGC 3087 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Antlia about 121 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 80,000 ly, about 80% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 2,673 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
121 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
80k ly
across
11.4
apparent magnitude
2,673 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 121 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3087 as it looked roughly 121 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
IC 2523Barred spiral3.1 million ly
apart
NGC 3108Lenticular5.6 million ly
apart
IC 2526Lenticular5.6 million ly
apart
IC 2536Barred spiral6.5 million ly
apart
NGC 3100Lenticular6.9 million ly
apart
IC 2558Spiral6.9 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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