NGC 986

NGC 986

NGC 986 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Fornax about 92 million ly from Earth. It spans roughly 100,000 ly, about the width of our Milky Way. It is receding from us at about 1,994 km/s.

Illustration from its catalogued shape, not a photograph

Spiral
type · Sab
92 million ly
from Earth · from redshift
101k ly
across
10.9
apparent magnitude
1,994 km/s
receding (RC3)

Because its light is 92 million ly from home, you are seeing NGC 986 as it looked roughly 92 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
Fornax BSpiral16 million ly
apart
NGC 1326ASpiral18 million ly
apart
NGC 1310Spiral18 million ly
apart
NGC 1341Spiral18 million ly
apart
Fornax ALenticular18 million ly
apart
NGC 1316CLenticular19 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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