The Sombrero Galaxy

         

                            The Galaxy Itself

         The Sombrero Galaxy is a beautiful galaxy in a land far, far away. Twenty eight million light years away, to be exact. It is actually located in the constellation virgo, which you can see in the southern skies. This galaxy has a dark dust lane and bulge that gives the galaxy the appearance of a sombrero. The large bulge in the middle is actually a supermassive black hole, which helps the scientists theory that it is an unbarred spiral galaxy.


                            History
          The Sombrero Galaxy was originally discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1781. But it was re-discovered in 1784 by William Herschel, who found it in his famous reflector telescope. They were actually collegues, but William was the one that made this famous galaxy known. It is scientifically named M104 because it was the 104th object registered in the catologue of Nebula. It has the apparent magnitude of +9.0, so it is pretty bright. 

                    

                            Interesting Facts

      

  The Name of this galaxy came from its resemblance to the famous mexican hat. It has an apparent dimension of 9x4 (arc min.) It has never been explored. There is no way anyone can get near it because of the EXTREME
gravitational force.



                            References
http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/eduoff/cas/cas2002/cas-projects/uk_m104_1/

http://www.seds.org/messier/more/m104_deep.html


http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/arch08/080512sombrero.htm

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