James Webb Space Telescope has "undressed" Sombrero Galaxy: turns out it looks like a frisbee. Photo

The James Webb Space Telescope has created a new image of the Sombrero Galaxy, also known as Messier 104 (M104). Completely deprived of its atypically large galactic bulge (a cluster of stars in the central zone of a spiral galaxy that has a spherical shape), which hid a bright core, the galaxy now looks more like a frisbee.

The European Space Agency has published an image comparing the appearance of the famous Sombrero galaxy in mid-infrared light and visible light. The James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the galaxy's smooth inner disk, while the Hubble Space Telescope's visible light image shows a large and extended glow of the central bulge of stars.

Both the Webb and Hubble images reveal the folded nature of the dust that forms the outer ring of the Sombrero galaxy.

According to the researchers, the clumpy nature of the dust, in which MIRI detects carbon-containing molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, may indicate the presence of young star-forming regions. However, compared to other galaxies previously studied with the Webb telescope, the Sombrero galaxy is not a special center of star formation. The rings of the Sombrero galaxy produce less than one solar mass of stars per year, while the Milky Way produces approximately two solar masses per year.

The M104 galaxy is one of the most spectacular neighbors of the Milky Way. Due to the protruding central part, the characteristic dust streak, and the small angle between the main plane and the line of sight, this star system is informally called Sombrero. This galaxy is a "hybrid". It is classified as lenticular - it occupies an intermediate position between traditional spiral and elliptical systems.

Lenticular galaxies have the shape of a disk and a clearly defined core. They show no traces of spiral structure, and they have already lost most of their interstellar gas.

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