NGC 3666

NGC 3666

NGC 3666 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo about 49 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 49,000 ly, about 49% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 1,047 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Barred spiral
type · SBc
49 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
49k ly
across
12.7
apparent magnitude
1,047 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 49 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3666 as it looked roughly 49 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 2767Spiral1.9 million ly
apart
IC 2828Irregular2.6 million ly
apart
NGC 3705Spiral3.3 million ly
apart
IC 2782Spiral3.4 million ly
apart
NGC 3810Spiral4.7 million ly
apart
IC 692Elliptical4.8 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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