Pic of the Week: The Sombrero Galaxy

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Messier 104 (M104) captured by the JWST. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI)

This week’s image, released late last year, comes from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Messier 104 (M104), called the Sombrero galaxy, shines in all its blueness. It is about 31 million light-years away. It would have been interesting to see this galaxy from above (or below, for that matter).

Here is more about the galaxy from NASA:

In Webb’s mid-infrared view of the Sombrero galaxy, also known as Messier 104 (M104), the signature, glowing core seen in visible-light images does not shine, and instead a smooth inner disk is revealed. The sharp resolution of Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) also brings into focus details of the galaxy’s outer ring, providing insights into how the dust, an essential building block for astronomical objects in the universe, is distributed. The galaxy’s outer ring, which appeared smooth like a blanket in imaging from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, shows intricate clumps in the infrared for the first time.

Note: Below is another view of the galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Image (Credit): Messier 104 (M104) captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. (This image was created from data from HST program 9714: K. Noll, H. Bond, C. Christian, L. Frattare, F. Hamilton, Z. Levay, and T. Royle (STScI)).