Astronomy Picture of the Day - Messier 104

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 23 Apr 2022 | Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Legacy Archive; Processing & Copyright: Ignacio Diaz Bobillo

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: A gorgeous spiral galaxy, Messier 104 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 view of the well-known galaxy was made from over 10 hours of Hubble Space Telescope image data, processed to bring out faint details often lost in the 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 spiky foreground stars in this field of view lie well within our own Milky Way.

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[FroggyTheGremlim]

At the very bottom of the frame there are two galaxies that seem to be IDENTICAL.

I imagine they are gravitationally connected.

[rfp1234]

Star Trek studios couldn’t produce anything as good as reality.

[adorno]

I imagine they are gravitationally connected.

Everything in the universe is gravitationally connected.

But, I get what you're saying.

[adorno]

28 million light-years away

I wonder where all that stuff is now.

The universe is not what it used to be.

[dragnet2]

I wonder where all that stuff is now.

Likely the same place our Milky Way Galaxy is, which thankfully, is very intact.

[MtnClimber]

I see those two galaxies in the lower left. They do seem to be very close.

[metmom]

Wow!!!

That’s beautiful!

[adorno]

Likely the same place our Milky Way Galaxy is, which thankfully, is very intact.

Very unlikely.

The universe and all of its galaxies and stars, are in constant movement, and what we see now occurred millions and billions of years ago. So, everything we see now is no longer what it used to be millions and billions of years ago. The Milky Way galaxy is not what it used to be nor where it used to be, and will be likely be 'somewhere else' in a different form, billions of years from now.

[adorno]

I see those two galaxies in the lower left. They do seem to be very close.

Those two galaxies are either getting ready to merge, or are separating after colliding. They'll likely be entangled for eternity or until the death of the universe.

[Larry Lucido]

the Sombrero Galaxy

Still waiting for the first pictures of the J. Peterman Galaxy, also known as the Urban Sombrero Galaxy. “The horror!”

[Big Red Badger]

Thanks for the
Seinfeld Fix!
.
One day we’ll
Catch That Chicken!

[dragnet2]

The Milky Way galaxy is not what it used to be nor where it used to be, and will be likely be 'somewhere else' in a different form, billions of years from now.

Nothing is what it used to be, but the fact remains, it's still intact presently. And based on that, it's a very likely billions of other galaxies are intact and still exist today and will likely be that way for billions of years to come.

[MtnClimber]

Those two galaxies are either getting ready to merge, or are separating after colliding.

Bad drivers are everywhere!

[adorno]

Nothing is what it used to be, but the fact remains, it's still intact presently.

Nothing has remained intact. In fact, a lot of what we see out there now, has long been dead. Stars and even galaxies have long been dead, and we can still see them, but we see them because the light that reaches us took millions and billions of years to get here.

A lot of what we see our there, are ghosts, and even what might remain out there, is dying or changing, and will have moved trillions of miles from where they were billions of years ago.

Even our galaxy is not where it was a million years ago, and billions of years ago, it was some place completely different in an entirely different environment.

Thus, what we are seeing is ghosts in many places, and what was in those places has been replaced by either new 'stuff' or is completely devoid of matter and energy.

We ourselves have traveled trillions of miles from where we were a billion years ago, and where we're going, is a complete mystery.

[dragnet2]

You are a very contrary individual...

In fact, a lot of what we see out there now, has long been dead.

Tell me, how do you know, "A lot" of existing, catalog objects we have been observing for long time, are now dead/gone?

I mentioned the Milky Way Galaxy still exist. And if this is the case, why wouldn't millions or billions of other galaxies still exist as well? Are we the only galaxy which still exists?

[adorno]

You are a very contrary individual...

Why is talking about reality and science contrary? Facts are that, much of what we see out there is already GONE!!!, dead.

Tell me, how do you know, "A lot" of existing, catalog objects we have been observing for long time, are now dead/gone?

You don't know much about science, do you?

The light from a lot of the objects that we see from the universe, took a very long time to get to our eyes. That the Milky Way still exists does not mean that everything that existed in it in the past still exists, and the same goes for other galaxies'. What we see is history, and history means that, a lot of that stuff doesn't exist as it used to.

Billions of other galaxies continue to exist, and billions more continue to be formed as new.

But, those galaxies, as well as ours, continue to change, and even die. That we still see those galaxies does not mean that they still exist as they did millions or billions of years ago. Light takes time to reach our eyes, and we don't see the current state of anything, not even on our planet or in our solar system. What we see from our sun took more than 90 minutes to get to our eyes, so, we are are seeing things from our sun as it was some 90 minutes ago.

Nothing gets to our eyes instantaneously. Even what you see right next to you, is history, as far as time is concerned.

The universe, including everything in our vicinity, is not standing still, and we are going to be emitting light or other forms of radiation, which can be witnessed perhaps a million or a billion years from now, but that will not mean that we still exist millions or billions of years from now.

Science is hard, but it's easy if you take an interest in it.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Mtn Climber, Thanks! Just enough tilt to allow us to appreciate its balance and size! (Which really, we still cannot do!) A beautiful picture!

**Strange imagined analog—a galactic disk currently being de-fragmented or reformatted! (Recently did mine!)