Explanation:
What's going on in the center of this spiral galaxy?
Named the Sombrero Galaxy for its hat-like resemblance,
M104
features a prominent dust lane and a bright halo of stars and globular
clusters.
Reasons for the
Sombrero's
hat-like appearance include an unusually large and extended central bulge of stars,
and dark prominent dust lanes
that appear in a disk that we see nearly
edge-on.
Billions of old stars
cause the diffuse glow of the extended central bulge.
Close inspection of the bulge in the
abovephotograph shows many points of light that are actually
globular clusters.
M104's spectacular
dust rings harbor many younger
and brighter stars, and show intricate details astronomers
don't yet fully understand.
The very center of the
Sombrero glows across the electromagnetic spectrum, and is thought to house a large
black hole.
Fifty million-year-old light from the
Sombrero Galaxy can be seen with a
small telescope towards the constellation of Virgo.
