NGC 4073

NGC 4073

NGC 4073 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo about 275 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 170,000 ly, about 1.7 times the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 5,940 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
275 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
167k ly
across
11.5
apparent magnitude
5,940 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 275 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4073 as it looked roughly 275 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 4058Lenticular9.7 million ly
apart
NGC 4139Lenticular15 million ly
apart
NGC 4044Elliptical15 million ly
apart
IC 754Elliptical18 million ly
apart
NGC 4006Elliptical21 million ly
apart
IC 756Barred spiral21 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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