New Webb Telescope images reveal details of Sombrero Galaxy
The Sombrero Galaxy, so named by scientists due to its resemblance to a Mexican hat, is located 30 million light-years from Earth. Thanks to new images from the space telescope, we can now take a closer look at its structure.
NASA has released a new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. On this occasion, it captured the Messier 104 Galaxy (M104), also known as the Sombrero Galaxy due to its distinctive shape, previously photographed by the Hubble Telescope. The Webb Telescope has presented us with an image using blue, green, and red light filters.
Both the images from Webb and Hubble allow us to see the characteristic, clumpy structure of dust forming the outer ring of the Sombrero Galaxy. However, the picture taken by the Webb Telescope is more detailed.
The galaxy is depicted as a very elongated, blue disk, stretched from left to right at an angle, with a bright core at the centre. The inner disk is clearly outlined, and star dots can be seen. The outer disk is white-blue and clumpy, somewhat resembling Earth's clouds.
The Sombrero Galaxy was discovered in the 18th century
The Sombrero Galaxy was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain as early as 1781. It was not included in the original printed version of the Messier catalogue, but Méchain added it by hand to his private copy. However, researchers didn't catalogue it as Messier M104 until 1921.
