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Stratospheric observatory for infrared astronomy

Discovered in 1781 by the French astronomer and comet hunter, Pierre Méchain, the Sombrero galaxy is a lenticular galaxy, which is a classification between full elliptical and spiral, meaning that it has a disc structure but without spiral arms. It’s about 31 million light years away in the constellation of Virgo and about 50 million light years across (one-third of the Milky Way’s diameter). Astronomers have determined that the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy is about 1 billion solar masses, making it one of the largest in nearby galaxies. They’ve also determined that there are between 1,200 and 2,000 globular clusters present, more than ten times the estimate for the Milky Way’s population, and they’ve been able to correlate the prevalence of globular clusters with the amount of bulge in the galaxy. Using infrared spectroscopy astronomers have also determined that the bulk of star formation occurs within the highly contrasted dust lane. This is 2:20 hours of exposure.

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