NGC 4556

NGC 4556

NGC 4556 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices about 352 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 130,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 7,429 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
352 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
134k ly
across
14.2
apparent magnitude
7,429 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 352 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4556 as it looked roughly 352 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 4559ASpiral7.3 million ly
apart
IC 3556Lenticular8.4 million ly
apart
IC 3585Lenticular8.5 million ly
apart
IC 3598Spiral9.3 million ly
apart
NGC 4559BBarred spiral10 million ly
apart
NGC 4563Elliptical10 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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