Messier 104 lies around 28 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo.

Understood as the Sombrero galaxy, M104 or NGC 4594, this galaxy was found on May 11, 1781 by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain.

It has a size of around 49,000 light-years– about 3 times smaller sized than our Milky Way Galaxy.

Messier 104 has an extremely enormous main bulge and hosts a supermassive great void.

We see the galaxy edge-on, at an angle of 6 degrees south of its aircraft. Its dark dust lane controls the view.

Over the previous twenty years, Hubble has actually launched numerous pictures of Messier 104, including this widely known image from October 2003.

“Though loaded with stars, the Sombrero galaxy is remarkably not a hotbed of star development,” the Hubble astronomers stated in a declaration.

“Less than one solar mass of gas is transformed into stars within the knotted, dirty disk of the galaxy each year.”

“Even the galaxy’s main supermassive great void, which at 9 billion solar masses is more than 2,000 times more enormous than the Milky Way’s main great void, is relatively calm.”

“The galaxy is too faint to identify with the unaided eye, however it is easily viewable with a modest amateur telescope.”

“Seen from Earth, the galaxy covers a range equivalent to approximately one-third the size of the moon.”

“The galaxy’s size on the sky is too big to fit within Hubble’s narrow field of vision, so this image is really a mosaic of numerous images sewn together.”

“One of the important things that makes this galaxy particularly significant is its seeing angle, which tends simply 6 degrees off of the galaxy’s equator.”

“From this perspective, complex clumps and hairs of dust stick out versus the dazzling white galactic nucleus and bulge, developing an impact not unlike Saturn and its rings– however on an impressive galactic scale.”

“At the exact same time, this severe angle makes it challenging to recognize the structure of the Sombrero galaxy,” they stated.

“It’s unclear whether it’s a spiral nebula, like our own Milky Way, or an elliptical galaxy.”

“Curiously, the galaxy’s disk looks like a relatively common disk for a spiral nebula, and its spheroidal bulge and halo appear relatively common for an elliptical galaxy– however the mix of the 2 parts looks like neither a spiral nor an elliptical galaxy.”