NGC 3501

NGC 3501

NGC 3501 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo about 53 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 66,000 ly, about 66% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 1,083 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Spiral
type · Sc
53 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
66k ly
across
13.6
apparent magnitude
1,083 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 53 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3501 as it looked roughly 53 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 3455Spiral2.0 million ly
apart
NGC 3457Elliptical2.1 million ly
apart
NGC 3443Spiral2.2 million ly
apart
NGC 3454Barred spiral2.3 million ly
apart
NGC 3447BIrregular3.3 million ly
apart
NGC 3447ASpiral3.8 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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