NGC 4993

NGC 4993

NGC 4993 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Hydra about 137 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 62,000 ly, about 62% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 2,916 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E-S0
137 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
62k ly
across
13.4
apparent magnitude
2,916 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 137 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 4993 as it looked roughly 137 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
IC 4180Lenticular2.1 million ly
apart
NGC 4968Lenticular3.0 million ly
apart
IC 4197Elliptical4.6 million ly
apart
NGC 5022Barred spiral9.9 million ly
apart
NGC 5018Elliptical11 million ly
apart
NGC 5006Lenticular12 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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