M104: The Sombrero Galaxy
Credit:
Saturday, February 8, 1997

M104: The Sombrero Galaxy Credit:

🛰️ NASA · Astronomy Picture of the Day

The famous Sombrero galaxy (M104) is a bright nearby spiral galaxy. The prominent dust lane and halo of stars and globular clusters give this galaxy its name. Something very energetic is going on in the Sombrero's center, as much X-ray light has been detected from it. This X-ray emission coupled with unusually high central stellar velocities cause many astronomers to speculate that a black hole lies at the Sombrero's center - a black hole a billion times the mass of our Sun.

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