NGC 4256

NGC 4256

NGC 4256 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Draco about 118 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 130,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 2,571 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Barred spiral
type · Sb
118 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
133k ly
across
12.7
apparent magnitude
2,571 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 118 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4256 as it looked roughly 118 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 4108Spiral3.7 million ly
apart
NGC 4108BSpiral4.2 million ly
apart
NGC 4512Lenticular5.1 million ly
apart
NGC 4441Lenticular6.6 million ly
apart
NGC 4545Spiral7.7 million ly
apart
NGC 4210Barred spiral8.2 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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