← Back to gallery

Clusters & Galaxies ·

The Sombrero Galaxy

M104, a lenticular galaxy 31 million light-years away with a striking dust lane.

The Sombrero Galaxy with its bright core and dark equatorial dust lane

Select the image to view it at full resolution.

View the annotated image Annotated Sombrero Galaxy image identifying surrounding stars and galaxies

The Sombrero Galaxy, M104, is a lenticular galaxy in Virgo approximately 31 million light-years away. It has a bright nucleus, an unusually large central bulge and a prominent dark dust lane across its inclined disc.

Its centre contains a supermassive black hole with roughly one billion times the mass of our Sun.