NGC 3904

NGC 3904

NGC 3904 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Hydra about 75 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 75,000 ly, about 75% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 1,714 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
75 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
75k ly
across
10.8
apparent magnitude
1,714 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 75 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3904 as it looked roughly 75 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 3923Elliptical6.0 million ly
apart
IC 2913Lenticular6.1 million ly
apart
IC 2764Lenticular7.4 million ly
apart
IC 3005Barred spiral7.8 million ly
apart
NGC 3717Barred spiral8.1 million ly
apart
NGC 3955Lenticular9.2 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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