Messier 104, also known as the Sombrero Galaxy, is an edge-on spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation. It’s 28 million light-years away, 50,000 light-years across, and has a mass of 800 billion suns. It’s the brightest galaxy within a 32.6 million light-year radius of the Milky Way.
The Sombrero Galaxy is named for its resemblance to a Mexican hat, with a broad rim and high top. It’s best seen with small telescopes during the months of March, April, and May.
The galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. Hubble observations also reveal that the Sombrero Galaxy has nearly 2,000 globular clusters, which is 10 times more than in our galaxy. French astronomer Pierre Méchain discovered the Sombrero Galaxy in 1781, but it wasn’t included in Messier’s original catalog.
Here are some facts about the Sombrero Galaxy:
Stars
The Sombrero Galaxy contains several hundred billion stars, about 100 times as many stars as there are people today on Earth.
Globular clusters
The Sombrero Galaxy has an estimated 2,000 globular clusters, 10 times as many as orbit our Milky Way galaxy.
Dust lane
The Sombrero Galaxy’s most striking feature is the dust lane that crosses in front of the bulge of the galaxy. This dust lane is actually a symmetrical ring that encloses the bulge of the galaxy.
