A Sombrero of Stars
The galaxy M104, or NGC 4594, also popularly known as the “Sombrero Galaxy”, is an unbarred spiral galaxy and is one of the largest galaxies at the southern edge of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. It has a bright nucleus, an unusually large central bulge, and a prominent dust lane in its disk. With this bulge and large dust lane, the galaxy takes on the appearance of a sombrero. The unusually large bulge, the dust lane and the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole attract the attention of professional astronomers, while it’s brightness - it has an apparent magnitude of 9.0 - means it can easily be seen with amateur telescopes. The Sombrero Galaxy is about 50,000 light years across, and 28,000,000 light years, or 9 megaparsecs, from Sol (our sun). Fifty thousand light years across and twenty-eight million light years away. Them’s big numbers; one light year is roughly equivalent to 9,460,730,472,580.8 kilometers or 5,878,625,373,183.61 statute miles. So just how many kilometers away is it? Well… you do the math; I’ve got to go sort out my ear wax collection.
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