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Credit & Copyright: Bray Falls
Explanation:
A gorgeous spiral galaxy,
M104 is famous
for its nearly edge-on
profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes.
Seen in silhouette against an extensive central bulge of stars,
the swath of cosmic dust lends a
broad brimmed hat-like appearance to the galaxy suggesting
a more popular moniker, the Sombrero Galaxy.
This sharp optical view of the well-known galaxy made
from ground-based image data was processed to preserve
details often lost in overwhelming glare of M104's
bright central bulge.
Also known as NGC 4594, the Sombrero galaxy can be seen
across the spectrum, and
is host to a central
supermassive black hole.
About 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light-years away,
M104 is one of the
largest galaxies at the southern edge of the
Virgo Galaxy Cluster.
Still the colorful spiky foreground stars in this field of view
lie well within our own Milky Way galaxy.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: spiral galaxy - dust - M 104
Publications with words: spiral galaxy - dust - M 104
See also: