NGC 4742

NGC 4742

NGC 4742 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo about 59 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 37,000 ly, about 37% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 1,286 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
59 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
37k ly
across
11.2
apparent magnitude
1,286 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 59 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4742 as it looked roughly 59 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 4781Spiral690,000 ly
apart
NGC 4784Lenticular870,000 ly
apart
NGC 4722Lenticular3.1 million ly
apart
NGC 4723Spiral3.3 million ly
apart
IC 3908Barred spiral3.4 million ly
apart
NGC 4790Barred spiral4.3 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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