NGC 3281D

NGC 3281D

NGC 3281D is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Antlia about 122 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 73,000 ly, about 73% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 5,366 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Barred spiral
type · SBcd
122 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
73k ly
across
14.7
apparent magnitude
5,366 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 122 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3281D as it looked roughly 122 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 3258CSpiral2.4 million ly
apart
IC 2584Lenticular3.9 million ly
apart
NGC 3347CSpiral5.3 million ly
apart
NGC 3347ABarred spiral5.5 million ly
apart
NGC 3273Lenticular6.2 million ly
apart
NGC 3289Lenticular6.7 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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