What is the Sombrero Galaxy?

One of most famous spiral galaxies is Messier 104, widely known as the “Sombrero” because of its particular shape. It is located towards the constellation Virgo, at a distance of about 30 million light-years and is the 104th object in the famous catalog of deep-sky objects by French astronomer Charles Messier. The galaxy is surrounded by a halo of stars, dust, and gas that indicate it may actually be an elliptical galaxy that contains a more robust interior configuration. Shorter time exposures reveal distinct spiral arms radiating from the center and it is referred to as a “spiral galaxy” by astronomers. M104 is surrounded by globular clusters in the hundreds – a much richer population than our own Milky Way or most other observed galactic bulges. The complexity of this dust is apparent directly in front of the bright nucleus but is also evident in the dark absorbing lanes throughout the disc. A large number of small, diffuse objects can be seen as a swarm in the halo of Messier 104. Most of these are globular clusters, similar to those found in our own Milky Way, but Messier 104 has a much larger number of them. This galaxy also appears to host a supermassive black hole of about 1 billion solar masses, one of the most massive black holes measured in any nearby galaxy, and 250 times larger than the black hole in the Milky Way. Despite having such a massive black hole at its center, the galaxy is rather quiet, implying that the black hole is on a very stringent diet.

The post What is the Sombrero Galaxy? appeared first on interaksyonph.