Sombrero Conceals Turbulent Past
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Text, News From The Universe. March 11, 2020
Sombrero Conceals Turbulent Past
Image, a bright, disk-shaped galaxy with a uniform, dusty ring all around its edge.
Text, Like a desperado in the Wild West, the broad "brim" of the Sombrero galaxy's disk may conceal a rough and tumble history.
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Beyond the brim, in the galaxy's outer halo, astronomers found very few of the older, metal-poor stars they expected.
Instead, the halo contained younger, metal-rich stars that ate expected in a galaxy's main disk.
One explanation is that the Sombrero resulted from the merger of two or more large galaxies, causing young disk stars to be tossed into the halo.
The merger of large galaxies usually results in warped shapes for billions of years, but the Sombrero appears calm and undisturbed.
The Sombrero's mysterious past remains unconfirmed. Future telescopes like NASA's W FIRST and Webb Space Telescope will continue the investigation.
This news was brought to you in part by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore MD.