The Sombrero Galaxy has a distinctive ring of dust that circles a smooth bulge of stars. The galaxy's dust and inner flat disk are very clear in the infrared. The Sombrero Galaxy may be a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, but because of its extremely edge-on orientation, we see it in the flat pancake aspect. Our Milky Way would also have this appearance if viewed from the side angle.
Optical: The dust ring is partially hidden in the galaxy's visible-light glow. Infrared: The galaxy's dust and inner flat disk are clear when viewing infrared.