NGC 6902B

NGC 6902B

NGC 6902B is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius about 139 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 53,000 ly, about 53% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 2,975 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Spiral
type · SABc
139 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
53k ly
across
13.8
apparent magnitude
2,975 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 139 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 6902B as it looked roughly 139 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 4946Lenticular2.9 million ly
apart
NGC 6902Barred spiral7.8 million ly
apart
NGC 6875Elliptical9.6 million ly
apart
NGC 6893Lenticular11 million ly
apart
NGC 6875ABarred spiral12 million ly
apart
NGC 6868Elliptical14 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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