NGC 4179

NGC 4179

NGC 4179 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Virgo about 57 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 1,256 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Lenticular
type · S0
57 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
75k ly
across
10.9
apparent magnitude
1,256 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 57 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4179 as it looked roughly 57 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 4123Spiral3.2 million ly
apart
NGC 4301Spiral4.8 million ly
apart
IC 770Galaxy5.9 million ly
apart
NGC 4339Elliptical6.2 million ly
apart
IC 745Lenticular6.4 million ly
apart
NGC 4517Spiral6.7 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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