SPACEMAS DAY 22 ✨🪐🌎☄️☀️🌕
This floating ring is a galaxy, or at least part of one. This is the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy, one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. Typically, there’s a dark band of dust that obscures the mid-section of the Sombrero Galaxy in optical light. But in infrared light, it actually glows brightly. The featured image, digitally sharpened, shows this infrared glow. It was recorded by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope and then superposed in false-color on an existing image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in visible light. The Sombrero Galaxy, also known as M104, spans about 50,000 light years across and lies 28 million light years away. M104 can be seen with a small telescope in the direction of the constellation Virgo.
Image Credit & Copyright: R. Kennicutt (Steward Obs.) et al., SSC, JPL, Caltech, NASA
