NGC 3311

NGC 3311

NGC 3311 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Hydra about 181 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 140,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 3,785 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E-S0
181 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
138k ly
across
11.3
apparent magnitude
3,785 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 181 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3311 as it looked roughly 181 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 3316Lenticular4.1 million ly
apart
NGC 3307Lenticular4.2 million ly
apart
NGC 3315Elliptical4.4 million ly
apart
NGC 3305Elliptical5.7 million ly
apart
NGC 3336Spiral6.1 million ly
apart
NGC 3309Elliptical9.5 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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