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Astronomy Picture of the Day -- M104: The Sombrero Galaxy
NASA ^ | February 05, 2015 | (see photo credit)

Posted on 02/05/2015 2:38:04 PM PST by SunkenCiv

Explanation: The striking 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 bulge of stars, the swath of cosmic dust lends a broad brimmed hat-like appearance to the galaxy suggesting the more popular moniker, The Sombrero Galaxy. Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based Subaru data have been reprocessed with amateur color image data to create this sharp view of the well-known galaxy. The processing results in a natural color appearance and preserves details often lost in overwhelming glare of M104's bright central bulge when viewed with smaller ground-based instruments. Also known as NGC 4594, the Sombrero galaxy can be seen across the spectrum and is thought to host 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.

February 05, 2015

(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; astronomy; m104; science
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To: SunkenCiv

Ay Carumba!


21 posted on 02/05/2015 6:15:36 PM PST by left that other site (You shall know the Truth, and The Truth Shall Set You Free.)
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To: left that other site

‘We don’t need no steenking gravity!’


22 posted on 02/05/2015 8:34:03 PM PST by Ken H (What happens on the internet, stays on the internet.)
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To: Ken H

hahahahaha!


23 posted on 02/06/2015 6:22:11 AM PST by left that other site (You shall know the Truth, and The Truth Shall Set You Free.)
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