The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a special image series as part of its 35th anniversary celebration, featuring updated views of iconic targets including the Sombrero Galaxy. The latest image reveals hidden dust lanes and far-flung stars, providing new levels of detail about this distinctive galaxy.
Located approximately 30 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, the Sombrero Galaxy is known for its striking appearance. Its bright central bulge and sharply defined disk resemble a sombrero, giving it its memorable name. However, despite being packed with stars, the galaxy surprisingly forms very few new stars, with less than one solar mass of gas converted into stars within the knotted, dusty disk each year.
The galaxy’s central supermassive black hole is also surprisingly calm, despite being over 2,000 times more massive than the Milky Way’s central black hole. Researchers used Hubble to investigate the Sombrero Galaxy, measuring metals in stars in its expansive halo. This type of measurement can help astronomers better understand a galaxy’s history, potentially revealing whether it merged with other galaxies in the past.
The analysis suggests that the Sombrero Galaxy may have undergone a massive merger several billion years ago, which could explain its distinctive appearance. The extreme angle of the galaxy makes it difficult to discern its structure, but the combination of its disk and bulge components resembles neither a spiral nor an elliptical galaxy.
This new image series marks an important milestone in Hubble’s 30-year history of exploring the universe, providing insights into everything from galaxy formation to cosmic expansion.
Source: https://scitechdaily.com/dust-light-ancient-collisions-the-sombrero-galaxy-like-youve-never-seen-it