James Webb Space Telescope takes new hi-res image of Sombrero Galaxy

By Esra Tekin

ISTANBUL (AA) - NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday captured a high-resolution image of the Sombrero Galaxy, revealing new details about the clumpy structure of the dust cloud extending along the galaxy's outer ring.

The telescope, with the help of the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), captured a high-resolution mid-infrared image of the galaxy, also known as Messier 104 (M104), according to a statement from the US space agency.

The statement said the new image contained differences compared to those obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2003, which used visible light.

It said that the core, which appears bright in the Hubble image, is actually a smooth, dense inner disk.

The new images also provided fresh insights into the dense and irregular structure of the dust cloud in the galaxy's outer ring.

The complex clustering of the galaxy's outer ring, which appeared "smooth like a blanket" in the 2005 images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, was revealed for the first time in the Webb telescope image.

Researchers reported that MIRI detected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon-containing molecules in the dust cloud, which could indicate the presence of young star-forming regions.

In addition, the researchers noted that the galaxy contains about 2,000 globular star clusters, made up of hundreds of thousands of older stars, all held together by gravity.

The Sombrero Galaxy (Messier 104 or NGC 4594), named after its resemblance to the traditional Mexican sombrero hat, is a spiral galaxy located about 30 million light-years from Earth in the Virgo constellation.