Sunny Priyan
Located around 30 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, the Sombrero Galaxy is instantly recognizable.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll
The galaxy’s softly luminous bulge and sharply outlined disk resemble the rounded crown and broad brim of the Mexican hat from which the galaxy gets its name.
Image Credit: Freepik
The Sombrero Galaxy creates less than one solar mass of new stars each year in its dusty, knotty disk.
Image Credit: Freepik
The black hole at the center of the Sombrero Galaxy is nine billion solar masses—more than 2000 times as massive as the Milky Way’s black hole—and is rather quiet.
Image Credit: Freepik
The Sombrero Galaxy is too faint to see with the naked eye but easily visible through a modest amateur telescope, appearing about one-third the size of the full Moon.
Image Credit: Freepik
Because it's too large for Hubble’s field of view, the image is a mosaic made from multiple stitched-together shots.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll