NGC 7117

NGC 7117

NGC 7117 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Grus about 261 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 130,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 5,587 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Elliptical
type · E-S0
261 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
130k ly
across
12.8
apparent magnitude
5,587 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 261 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 7117 as it looked roughly 261 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 7124Barred spiral20 million ly
apart
NGC 7118Elliptical22 million ly
apart
NGC 7072ASpiral35 million ly
apart
NGC 7038Spiral37 million ly
apart
IC 5125Barred spiral38 million ly
apart
NGC 7057Elliptical38 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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