NGC 3956

NGC 3956

NGC 3956 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Crater about 77 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 1,630 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Barred spiral
type · SBc
77 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
78k ly
across
12.5
apparent magnitude
1,630 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 77 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 3956 as it looked roughly 77 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 3957Lenticular2.2 million ly
apart
NGC 4027Barred spiral2.5 million ly
apart
NGC 4024Elliptical3.4 million ly
apart
Antennae GalaxiesBarred spiral3.4 million ly
apart
Antennae GalaxiesBarred spiral3.5 million ly
apart
NGC 3981Barred spiral4.4 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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