NGC 631

NGC 631

NGC 631 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Pisces about 263 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 71,000 ly, about 71% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 5,634 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E
263 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
71k ly
across
15.0
apparent magnitude
5,634 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 263 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 631 as it looked roughly 263 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 150Barred spiral11 million ly
apart
NGC 664Barred spiral14 million ly
apart
IC 1726Galaxy16 million ly
apart
IC 1723Barred spiral17 million ly
apart
NGC 652Spiral19 million ly
apart
NGC 741Elliptical22 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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