The Sombrero Galaxy has a fresh close-up, and it is packed with detail.
Astronomers released new images of the galaxy, formally known as Messier 104, captured by the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera atop the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Victor M. Blanco 4-Meter Telescope in Chile.
The galaxy sits in the Virgo constellation, about 30 million light-years from Earth. In the night sky, it can just be seen with a small telescope or binoculars, and it is a popular target for amateur sky-gazers.
From Earth, Messier 104 appears almost entirely flat, like a disk, except for a huge central bulge that gave it the “sombrero” nickname.
The new images show the galaxy’s bright core amid 2,000 globular star clusters, conglomerations of stars tightly bound together by gravity.
The disk’s rim appears darker, showing the space dust and hydrogen that have built up at the galaxy’s perimeter to form a dust lane. That area is also where most of the galaxy’s star formation happens.
Messier 104 spans 50,000 light-years and has a central supermassive blackhole with a mass roughly equivalent to one billion suns.
In the new images, the galaxy is surrounded by its halo, which appears to be around three times its width.
“This may be the first time the halo has been captured with this level of detail and at this large a scale,” wrote the U.S. National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab, in a statement.
The galaxy was first spotted by French astronomer Pierre Méchain in 1781 while he was working with Charles Messier, who compiled noncomet astronomical bodies into a list that bears his name today.
The Sombrero Galaxy was not in the initial publication of that list, but it was later found that Messier had added it by hand to his personal copy.
Astronomer William Herschel is also recorded as observing the galaxy in 1784.
In 1921, Messier 104 was formally added to the list after astronomer Camille Flammarion confirmed its discovery.
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