Universe Today
Sometimes an old telescope can still impress. That is certainly the case for Hubble, which is rapidly approaching the 35th anniversary of its launch. To celebrate, the telescope's operators are collaborating with ESA to release a series of stunning new photographs of some of the most iconic astronomical objects the telescope has observed. As of the time of writing, the latest one to be released is a spectacular new image of a favorite of millions of amateur astronomers - the Sombrero Galaxy.
The Sombrero Galaxy (M104) isn't visible to the naked eye, but it's one of the easiest galaxies to find with almost any amateur telescope. Located about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, one of the most stunning features of the Sombrero Galaxy is the angle from which we can see it from Earth. As shown in the picture, the angle is almost edge-on, with a 6-degree tilt allowing a peak over the galaxy's top.
At the center of that galaxy, though still invisible to most telescopes, is a supermassive black hole that weighs about 9 billion times the mass of our Sun. It holds together a galaxy that is also massive, weighing in at about 800 billion stellar masses, making it one of the heaviest objects in the Virgo cluster of almost 2,000 galaxies. That weight is only distributed in an area slightly larger than the Milky Way, as the Sombrero Galaxy is only 105,000 light years across.
Here's a video of the Sombrero Galaxy from various telescopes.
Credit - James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) YouTube Channel
Such a massive galaxy has attracted companions, with around 2,000 globular clusters associated with it, 10 times more than the number surrounding the Milky Way. Some of those larger globular clusters are even visible with an amateur telescope. However, they appear to be washed out by the general brightness of the galaxy's center in the newest Hubble image.
Besides being so massive, the Sombrero Galaxy has a few interesting astronomical characteristics. First, it exhibits spiral and elliptical galaxy features, though those features aren't as obvious from the angle we can observe the galaxy. Despite being so massive, there is not a lot of star formation in the galaxy, with only around one new Sun being created yearly.
A single new Sun wouldn't do much to impact the stunning images that Hubble and other telescopes have provided over the years of this unique galaxy. This latest image is actually a composite of several different images, as the galaxy itself is too large to fit into Hubble's relatively narrow field of view. But it doesn't lessen the awe that these kinds of images can strike, given that the light captured by one of the most successful telescopes in history comes from hundreds of billions of stars.
Anton Petrov discusses some details of what we know of the Sombrero Galaxy.
Credit - Anton Petrov YouTube Channel
The Hubble/ESA team will release even more stunning images over the coming weeks. If the following ones are anything like this newest image of the Sombrero, it shows that there can still be life in our great telescopes, even after 35 years.
Learn More:
ESA - Hubble offers a new view of Sombrero galaxy
UT - Fantastic New Image of the Sombrero Galaxy From Webb
UT - Hubble Takes a 2.5 Gigapixel Image of Andromeda
UT - Hubble Sees a Random Collection of Galaxies, Perfectly Lined Up