NGC 3438

NGC 3438

NGC 3438 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Leo about 302 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 78,000 ly, about 78% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 6,486 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E?
302 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
78k ly
across
14.3
apparent magnitude
6,486 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 302 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3438 as it looked roughly 302 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 3417Barred spiral11 million ly
apart
NGC 3425Lenticular12 million ly
apart
NGC 3427Lenticular13 million ly
apart
NGC 3436Spiral13 million ly
apart
NGC 3491Elliptical15 million ly
apart
NGC 3506Spiral15 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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