NGC 3947

NGC 3947

NGC 3947 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo about 289 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 120,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 6,256 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Barred spiral
type · Sb
289 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
115k ly
across
13.2
apparent magnitude
6,256 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 289 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3947 as it looked roughly 289 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 3919Elliptical6.4 million ly
apart
IC 742Spiral11 million ly
apart
NGC 3940Elliptical12 million ly
apart
NGC 3842Elliptical12 million ly
apart
NGC 3857Lenticular12 million ly
apart
NGC 3837Elliptical13 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).

← all galaxies