Thursday, May 14, 2009

Photo of the Day - Messier 104 - The Sombrero Galaxy



In 2005, NASA released images of the galaxy called Messier 104, which is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light it resembles a broad-brimmed Mexican hat. The new Sombrero picture combines a recent infrared observation from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope with a well- known visible light image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

The Sombrero is one of the most massive objects at the southern edge of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. It is equal in size to 800 billion suns. This spiral galaxy is located 28 million light-years away and is 50,000 light-years across.

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High-Res Photo - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/M104_ngc4594_sombrero_galaxy_hi-res.jpg

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