Dark Energy Camera captures new Sombrero Galaxy image
Updated
Updated · Sky at Night Magazine · Apr 29
Dark Energy Camera captures new Sombrero Galaxy image
5 articles · Updated · Sky at Night Magazine · Apr 29
The view from Chile's Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope shows the galaxy 30 million lightyears away, with a bright nucleus, about 2,000 globular clusters and a dark dust band.
It also reveals a glowing halo extending more than three times the galaxy's width and a stream of stars sweeping from its southern side.
The edge-on galaxy, also called Messier 104, is about 50,000 lightyears across and hosts a supermassive black hole; the camera was built for the Dark Energy Survey studying cosmic expansion.
The Sombrero Galaxy's ghost-like halo hints at a violent past. What other galactic cannibalism is hidden in deep space?
As major dark energy surveys conclude, can NASA's upcoming Roman telescope finally solve the universe's greatest mystery?
With conflicting data from top surveys, is the mysterious force of dark energy actually changing over time?