Sombrero Galaxy in Multiple Wavelengths
The Sombrero Galaxy's dust and inner flat disk are very clear in the infrared.
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.
This animation is the same as above, played twice as fast.
Hubble optical image of Sombrero Galaxy
The dust ring is partially hidden in the galaxy's visible-light glow.
Spitzer Near-Infrared image of Sombrero Galaxy
The galaxy's dust and inner flat disk are clear when viewing infrared.
Hubble and Spitzer images combined of the Sombrero Galaxy
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Image Credits:
- Optical: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI)
- Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Kennicutt (University of Arizona) and the SINGS Team.
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Visualizer
- Greg Bacon (STScI)
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Image processing
- Robert Kennicutt (The University of Arizona)
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Technical support
- Leann Johnson (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
Release date
This page was originally published on Monday, October 29, 2018.
This page was last updated on Friday, August 2, 2024 at 4:47 PM EDT.
Missions
This page is related to the following missions:Datasets used
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[Spitzer Space Telescope]
ID: 690This dataset can be found at: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/
See all pages that use this dataset -
[Hubble Space Telescope]
ID: 831
Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.