Media Information
 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection
Title:
The Sombrero Galaxy from HST
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://heritage.sts…] shows many points of light that are actually globular clusters [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. M104 [ http://www.eso.org/…]'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…].
Credit and Copyright:
Hubble Heritage Team [ http://heritage.sts…] (AURA [ http://www.aura-ast…]/STScI [ http://www.stsci.ed…]/NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/])
facet_where:
M104
facet_where:
Sombrero Galaxy
facet_where:
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
facet_where:
Washington, D.C.
facet_what:
ESO
facet_what:
Aura
facet_what:
Virgo
facet_what:
Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
original url:
http://antwrp.gsfc.…
UID:
SPD-APOD-ap031008

The Sombrero Galaxy from HST
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