Looking for info about the Sombrero Galaxy

[mayflowers]

TL;DR

General info search

Hi, I saw someone with an avatar on a different forum that turns out to be the sombrero galaxy.

AI says, too distant to know much about, aside from billions of starts, potentially tons of planets, and a supermassive black hole in the center.

I find that setup fascinating, despite knowing close to nothing about the universe.

So I ask: could anyone point me in the direction of, or provide information about this galaxy?

I do not trust AI beyond general information, and I like to go pretty deep into it.

 

[PeroK]

Wikipedia is a good place to start. The page has an overview and some references to follow up on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sombrero_Galaxy

 

[.Scott]

You can try a search on Messier 104, it's astronomical designation.
It has a wiki page.
As you likely already know, it about 30,000,000 light-years way and is slightly larger than our own galaxy.

 

[mayflowers]

You can try a search on Messier 104, it's astronomical designation.
It has a wiki page.
As you likely already know, it about 30,000,000 light-years way and is slightly larger than our own galaxy.

That's a crazy distance. Amazing that it can be seen from here.

 

[.Scott]

That's a crazy distance. Amazing that it can be seen from here.

It's also crazy big.
In the night sky, it is magnitude +8.0. So, you would need (at least) binoculars to see it.

 

[russ_watters]

It's also crazy big.

Yeah, it's 9 arcmin wide, nearly a third the size of the full moon in the sky. So we'd be able to see it's if it were brighter.

 

[mayflowers]

So Wikipedia didn't mention: how might the black hole in the center affect the galaxy? And the brightness and size.. is there anything about the star system and formation that allows all these things to happen in conjunction?

Id love to take a look at what the planets looked like in this galaxy.. imagine if they were rock with water, and instead of following the gravitational pull of the sun you're rotating around a black hole

 

[.Scott]

So Wikipedia didn't mention: how might the black hole in the center affect the galaxy? And the brightness and size.. is there anything about the star system and formation that allows all these things to happen in conjunction?

Id love to take a look at what the planets looked like in this galaxy.. imagine if they were rock with water, and instead of following the gravitational pull of the sun you're rotating around a black hole

A planet that orbits a black hole without also orbiting a star would be missing that nice steady warmth and glow of a sun that continues on for millions or billions of years. It would not be a likely candidate for life. As long as it stayed well away from the black hole, it would stay frozen. Geothermal conditions might exist - like the occasional volcano or quake. There could be occasional meteor activity. But really, for the most part, a rather dull (and dark) vacation spot.

Our galaxy likely contains many rogue planets - all of which would be orbiting our galactic center and therefore also the black hole at Sagittarius A*. So they would meet your description. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to launch in a couple of years to look for them.

 

[phyzguy]

Basically all large galaxies have super-massive black holes in the center. It's thought that the galaxy and black hole grow up together. Our own is call Sagittarius-A* and it weighs more than 4,000,000 times the mass of the sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*

 

[pinball1970]

A little here but there is more info in the wiki page

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hu...night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-104/

A few images here on PF too.

Post in thread 'The James Webb Space Telescope'

Nov 27, 2024

Sombrero galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

From phys.org this week.

"General Observer time with Webb is more competitive than ever. A record-breaking 2,377 proposals were submitted by the 15 October 2024 deadline, requesting about 78,000 hours of observation time. This is an oversubscription rate—the ratio defining the observation hours requested versus the actual time available in one year of Webb's operations—of around 9 to 1."

• pinball1970

• 

 

[.Scott]

Post in thread 'The James Webb Space Telescope'

Nov 27, 2024

Sombrero galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

From phys.org this week.

"General Observer time with Webb is more competitive than ever. A record-breaking 2,377 proposals were submitted by the 15 October 2024 deadline, requesting about 78,000 hours of observation time. This is an oversubscription rate—the ratio defining the observation hours requested versus the actual time available in one year of Webb's operations—of around 9 to 1."

• pinball1970

• 

That Hubble photo shows some serious gray-scale contouring. This happens when the brightness/contrast is set to highlight a limited number of available gray-scale levels. In this case, moving outward from the pole (upward from the top pole), there are only about 10 gray scale levels available from the core (set to render white) and the space in the background (black).

I suspect this gray-scale resolution limit is from the Hubble image collection itself - and not from post processing. It could be corrected by increasing the exposure time - say by a factor of 5. But since it's the Hubble, at least we wouldn't have to compete with 78,000 hours of annual tasking.

There is also contouring on the Webb image - but because there are no large-area brightness gradients on the image content (at least not as large as with the Hubble image), they are not as obvious.