Astronomy Picture of the Day
Posted By admin On May 15, 2011 @ 6:53 pm In Photo Essays | Comments Disabled
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.
[1]
The Sombrero Galaxy from Hubble
Credit: NASA [2], ESA [3], and the Hubble Heritage [4] Team (STScI [5] / AURA [6])
Explanation: What’s going on in the center of this spiral galaxy? Named the Sombrero Galaxy for its hat-like resemblance, M104 [7] features a prominent dust lane and a bright halo of stars and globular clusters [8]. Reasons for the Sombrero’s hat-like appearance include an unusually large and extended central bulge of stars, and dark prominent dust [9] lanes that appear in a disk that we see nearly edge-on [10]. Billions of old stars [11] cause the diffuse glow of the extended central bulge. Close inspection of the bulge in the above [12] photograph [13] shows many points of light that are actually globular clusters [14]. M104 [15]‘s spectacular dust ring [16]s harbor many younger and brighter stars, and show intricate details astronomers don’t yet fully understand [17]. The very center of the Sombrero [18] glows across the electromagnetic spectrum [19], and is thought to house a large black hole [20]. Fifty million-year-old light from the Sombrero Galaxy [21] can be seen with a small telescope [22] towards the constellation [23] of Virgo [24].
Visit the NASA/JPL website to view more Astronomy Pictures of the Day [25]
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URL to article: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/05/15/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-70/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sombrero_hst_3215.jpg
[2] NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/
[3] ESA: http://www.spacetelescope.org/
[4] Hubble Heritage: http://heritage.stsci.edu/
[5] STScI: http://www.stsci.edu/
[6] AURA: http://www.aura-astronomy.org/
[7] M104: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBB2xQe8nMw
[8] clusters: http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=18009
[9] dust: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030706.html
[10] edge-on: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap020703.html
[11] old stars: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap991103.html
[12] above: http://heritage.stsci.edu/2003/28/caption.html
[13] photograph: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2003/28/image/a
[14] globular clusters: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/globular_clusters.html
[15] M104: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sombrero_Galaxy
[16] dust ring: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050511.html
[17] don’t yet fully understand: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1995A%26A...303..673E
[18] Sombrero: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sombrero
[19] electromagnetic spectrum: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html
[20] black hole: http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/abholes.html
[21] Sombrero Galaxy: http://www.hawastsoc.org/messier/fslide121.html
[22] small telescope: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap011014.html
[23] constellation: http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/constellations.html
[24] Virgo: http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/constellations/Virgo.html
[25] Astronomy Pictures of the Day: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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