NGC 7717

NGC 7717

NGC 7717 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Aquarius about 159 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 79,000 ly, about 79% of our Milky Way's width. It is receding from us at about 3,359 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Lenticular
type · S0-a
159 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
79k ly
across
13.8
apparent magnitude
3,359 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 159 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 7717 as it looked roughly 159 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 1491Barred spiral6.8 million ly
apart
NGC 7600Elliptical25 million ly
apart
NGC 7443Lenticular26 million ly
apart
IC 5321Barred spiral27 million ly
apart
NGC 7450Lenticular27 million ly
apart
NGC 7444Lenticular30 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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