NGC 4581

NGC 4581

NGC 4581 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo about 86 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 1,793 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
86 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
41k ly
across
12.4
apparent magnitude
1,793 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 86 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4581 as it looked roughly 86 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 4599Lenticular1.3 million ly
apart
NGC 4536Spiral2.5 million ly
apart
NGC 4533Spiral4.8 million ly
apart
NGC 4632Spiral6.3 million ly
apart
NGC 4496ASpiral6.9 million ly
apart
NGC 4409Barred spiral7.3 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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