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Pictures from space! Our image of the day
By Space.com Staff 18 hours ago
The Sombrero Galaxy
(Image credit: NASA/Digital Sky Survey/P. Goudfrooij/Hubble Heritage Team/STScI/AURA)
Friday, February 21, 2020: The Sombrero Galaxy may have a smooth "brim," suggesting that its past was free of any galactic collisions, but new data from the Hubble Space Telescope has shown that this seemingly unscathed galaxy is hiding a violent past. According to NASA, the galaxy's faint outer halo provides some forensic clues that suggest the galaxy underwent multiple collisions with other galaxies billions of years ago.
"These latest observations of the Sombrero are turning conventional theory on its head, showing only a tiny fraction of older, metal-poor stars in the halo, plus an unexpected abundance of metal-rich stars typically found only in a galaxy's disk, and the central bulge," Hubble officials said in a statement. "Past major galaxy mergers are a possible explanation, though the stately Sombrero shows none of the messy evidence of a recent merger of massive galaxies." — Hanneke Weitering
More:
https://www.space.com/34-image-day.html
