NGC 4955

NGC 4955

NGC 4955 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Hydra about 161 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 110,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 3,457 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
161 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
110k ly
across
12.2
apparent magnitude
3,457 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 161 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4955 as it looked roughly 161 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 4831Elliptical11 million ly
apart
IC 4219Barred spiral14 million ly
apart
NGC 5114Elliptical15 million ly
apart
IC 4264Spiral16 million ly
apart
IC 3813Lenticular18 million ly
apart
NGC 4936Elliptical18 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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