Why does the Sombrero Galaxy look like a hat? Reasons include the Sombrero [ http://www.seds.org…]'s unusually large and extended central bulge of stars, and dark prominent dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] lanes that appear in a disk that we see nearly edge-on [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Billions of old stars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] cause the diffuse glow of the extended central bulge. Close inspection of the bulge in the above photograph [ http://www.eso.org/…] shows many points of light that are actually globular clusters [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. M104's spectacular dust rings harbor many younger and brighter stars, and show intricate details astronomers don't yet fully understand [ http://adsabs.harva…]. The very center of the Sombrero [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] glows across the electromagnetic spectrum [ http://imagine.gsfc…], and is thought to house a large black hole [ http://image.gsfc.n…]. Fifty million-year-old light from the Sombrero Galaxy [ http://www.hawastso…] can be seen with a small telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] towards the constellation [ http://www.astro.wi…] of Virgo [ http://www.astro.wi…].
Explanation
Why does the Sombrero Galaxy look like a hat? Reasons include the Sombrero [ http://www.seds.org…]'s unusually large and extended central bulge of stars, and dark prominent dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] lanes that appear in a disk that we see nearly edge-on [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Billions of old stars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] cause the diffuse glow of the extended central bulge. Close inspection of the bulge in the above photograph [ http://www.eso.org/…] shows many points of light that are actually globular clusters [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. M104's spectacular dust rings harbor many younger and brighter stars, and show intricate details astronomers don't yet fully understand [ http://adsabs.harva…]. The very center of the Sombrero [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] glows across the electromagnetic spectrum [ http://imagine.gsfc…], and is thought to house a large black hole [ http://image.gsfc.n…]. Fifty million-year-old light from the Sombrero Galaxy [ http://www.hawastso…] can be seen with a small telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] towards the constellation [ http://www.astro.wi…] of Virgo [ http://www.astro.wi…].
