NGC 4268

NGC 4268

NGC 4268 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Virgo about 93 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 41,000 ly, about 41% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 2,335 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Lenticular
type · S0-a
93 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
41k ly
across
12.7
apparent magnitude
2,335 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 93 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4268 as it looked roughly 93 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 4255Lenticular2.5 million ly
apart
NGC 4197Spiral3.6 million ly
apart
NGC 4269Lenticular3.7 million ly
apart
NGC 4234Spiral3.8 million ly
apart
NGC 4215Lenticular3.9 million ly
apart
NGC 4287Barred spiral6.5 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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