Hubble mosaic of the majestic Sombrero Galaxy: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has trained its razor-sharp eye on one of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104 (M104). The galaxy's hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is tilted nearly edge-on. We view it from just six degrees north of its equatorial plane. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat. At a relatively bright magnitude of +8, M104 is just beyond the limit of naked-eye visibility and is easily seen through small telescopes. The Sombrero lies at the southern edge of the rich Virgo cluster of galaxies and is one of the most massive objects in that group, equivalent to 800 billion suns. The galaxy is 50,000 light-years across and is located 30 million light-years from Earth.

Name: M 104, Sombrero Galaxy
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Virgo
Distance: 30 million light years
Release date: 2 October 2004, 06:00
Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared Light: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features.

Name: M 104, NGC 4594, Sombrero Galaxy
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Virgo
Distance: 35 million light years
Release date: 2 October 2003, 06:00
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Firestorm of star birth seen in a Local Galaxy: This festively colorful nebula, called NGC 604, is one of the largest known seething cauldrons of star birth in a nearby galaxy. NGC 604 is similar to familiar star-birth regions inour Milky Way galaxy, such as the Orion Nebula, but it is vastlylarger in extent and contains many more recently formed stars. This monstrous star-birth region contains more than 200 brilliant blue stars within a cloud of glowing gases some 1,300 light-year sacross, nearly 100 times the size of the Orion Nebula. By contrast,the Orion Nebula contains just four bright central stars. The bright stars in NGC 604 are extremely young by astronomical standards, having formed a mere 3 million years ago.

Name: NGC 604
Type: Local Universe : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Triangulum
Distance: 3 million light years
Release date: 4 December 2003, 15:00
Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)