NGC 4976

NGC 4976

NGC 4976 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Centaurus about 66 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 110,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 1,453 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
66 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
112k ly
across
10.1
apparent magnitude
1,453 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 66 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4976 as it looked roughly 66 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 4945ASpiral2.2 million ly
apart
NGC 5121Spiral14 million ly
apart
NGC 5121ASpiral14 million ly
apart
NGC 5530Spiral17 million ly
apart
NGC 5643Spiral19 million ly
apart
IC 4402Barred spiral19 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).

← all galaxies