NGC 639

NGC 639

NGC 639 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor about 273 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 83,000 ly, about 83% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 5,826 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Spiral
type · Sa
273 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
83k ly
across
14.1
apparent magnitude
5,826 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 273 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 639 as it looked roughly 273 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 642Barred spiral3.1 million ly
apart
IC 1720Barred spiral12 million ly
apart
IC 1719Lenticular19 million ly
apart
IC 1762Barred spiral26 million ly
apart
NGC 439Elliptical27 million ly
apart
NGC 441Lenticular28 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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