The Sombrero Galaxy, also known as Messier 104 or NGC 4594, is a spiral galaxy located about 28 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo. It is named for its distinctive appearance, which resembles a wide-brimmed hat or sombrero.
The Sombrero Galaxy is classified as an Sa galaxy, which means that it has a central bulge surrounded by a tightly wound spiral disk. It has a diameter of approximately 50,000 light-years, making it about half the size of the Milky Way. The galaxy is estimated to contain around 800 billion stars, as well as a supermassive black hole at its center with a mass equivalent to about 1 billion suns.
One of the most interesting features of the Sombrero Galaxy is the dust lane that bisects its central bulge, creating the appearance of a hat brim. This dust lane is believed to be composed of gas and dust that have been drawn towards the center of the galaxy, possibly as a result of a past interaction with another galaxy. The Sombrero Galaxy also has a number of globular clusters orbiting around it, which are dense, spherical groups of stars that are believed to have formed early in the history of the galaxy.
The Sombrero Galaxy was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain in 1781, and it was later cataloged by Charles Messier. It has since been studied extensively by astronomers using a range of telescopes and instruments, including the Hubble Space Telescope
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