Sombrero galaxy can't make up it's mind - Polidicks

[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/75010084/GalaxyTakingAsiesta.jpg[/img] [SUP][/SUP][I]The infrared vision of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed that the Sombrero galaxy -- named after its appearance in visible light to a wide-brimmed hat -- is in fact two galaxies in one. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)[/I] [QUOTE] [I][URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120424161412.htm"][I]ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2012)[/I][/URL] — While some galaxies are rotund and others are slender disks like our spiral Milky Way, new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show that the Sombrero galaxy is both. The galaxy, which is a round elliptical galaxy with a thin disk embedded inside, is one of the first known to exhibit characteristics of the two different types. The findings will lead to a better understanding of galaxy evolution, a topic still poorly understood.[/I] "The Sombrero is more complex than previously thought," said Dimitri Gadotti of the European Southern Observatory in Chile and lead author of a new paper on the findings appearing in the [I]Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society[/I]. "The only way to understand all we know about this galaxy is to think of it as two galaxies, one inside the other."The Sombrero galaxy, also known as NGC 4594, is located 28 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. From our viewpoint on Earth, we can see the thin edge of its flat disk and a central bulge of stars, making it resemble a wide-brimmed hat. Astronomers do not know whether the Sombrero's disk is shaped like a ring or a spiral, but agree it belongs to the disk class. "Spitzer is helping to unravel secrets behind an object that has been imaged thousands of times," said Sean Carey of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It is intriguing Spitzer can read the fossil record of events that occurred billions of years ago within this beautiful and archetypal galaxy. "Spitzer captures a different view of the galaxy than visible-light telescopes. In visible views, the galaxy appears to be immersed in a glowing halo, which scientists had thought was relatively light and small. With Spitzer's infrared vision, a different view emerges. Spitzer sees old stars through the dust and reveals the halo has the right size and mass to be a giant elliptical galaxy. While it is tempting to think the giant elliptical swallowed a spiral disk, astronomers say this is highly unlikely because that process would have destroyed the disk structure. Instead, one scenario they propose is that a giant elliptical galaxy was inundated with gas more than nine billion years ago. Early in the history of our universe, networks of gas clouds were common, and they sometimes fed growing galaxies, causing them to bulk up. The gas would have been pulled into the galaxy by gravity, falling into orbit around the center and spinning out into a flat disk. Stars would have formed from the gas in the disk. "This poses all sorts of questions," said Rubén Sánchez-Janssen from the European Southern Observatory, co-author of the study. "How did such a large disk take shape and survive inside such a massive elliptical? How unusual is such a formation process? "Researchers say the answers could help them piece together how other galaxies evolve. Another galaxy, called Centaurus A, appears also to be an elliptical galaxy with a disk inside it. But its disk does not contain many stars. Astronomers speculate that Centaurus A could be at an earlier stage of evolution than the Sombrero and might eventually look similar. The findings also answer a mystery about the number of globular clusters in the Sombrero galaxy. Globular clusters are spherical nuggets of old stars. Ellipticals typically have a few thousand, while spirals contain a few hundred. The Sombrero has almost 2,000, a number that makes sense now but had puzzled astronomers when they thought it was only a disk galaxy.[/QUOTE]

Sombrero galaxy is a silly name.

[QUOTE=roody poo;35760701]Sombrero galaxy is a silly name.[/QUOTE] It's better than your name, asshole. [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Flaming, again" - Craptasket))[/highlight]

[QUOTE=roody poo;35760701]Sombrero galaxy is a silly name.[/QUOTE] It looks like a sombrero. It is a galaxy. ... Sombrero galaxy.

[QUOTE=roody poo;35760701]Sombrero galaxy is a silly name.[/QUOTE] Yeah because naming a galaxy after a hat is dumb, it would make more sense if they named one after me....... I want a galaxy named after me

[QUOTE=Frostypunch;35760984]naming a galaxy after a hat is dumb[/QUOTE] Whoever thinks this should be glad Gabe isn't an astronomer.

That was sarcasm

[QUOTE=roody poo;35760701]Sombrero galaxy is a silly name.[/QUOTE] Seriously better than UDFj-39546284 or something stupid like that. That's an actual galaxy name by the way.

Whenever I hear "Sombrero Galaxy", I always imagine it being worn by a several kiloparsec tall stereotypical Mexican man, dancing the eons away.

[QUOTE=Frostypunch;35761044]That was sarcasm[/QUOTE] That's why I said "whoever" instead of "you", mate.

[quote=NASA]The galaxy, [b]which is a round elliptical galaxy with a thin disk embedded inside[/b][/quote] That's a bit hard to wrap my head around, to be honest. How could it sustain that? Totally fascinating.

[QUOTE=mac338;35761110]That's why I said "whoever" instead of "you", mate.[/QUOTE] Crap I ruined it

Reminds me of this galaxy [t]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0912/NGC660Hagar.jpg[/t]

[QUOTE=Blazyd;35761205]Reminds me of this galaxy[/QUOTE] Ah yes, the Melted Gyroscope galaxy. [editline]29th April 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Frostypunch;35761131]Crap I ruined it[/QUOTE] You ruined nothing, good sir.

[QUOTE=ExplodingGuy;35761086]Whenever I hear "Sombrero Galaxy", I always imagine it being worn by a several kiloparsec tall stereotypical Mexican man, dancing the eons away.[/QUOTE] I imagine a galaxy with a big black mustache and a sombrero and this song playing in the background [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Rqdgna3Yw[/media] [img]http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l189/Simski_2006/sombrerogalaxy.png[/img]

[QUOTE=King Tiger;35760757]It's better than your name, asshole. [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Flaming, again" - Craptasket))[/highlight][/QUOTE] Hey thats not nice

Its cool seeing all this sciencey news :)

[QUOTE=Blazyd;35761205]Reminds me of this galaxy [t]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0912/NGC660Hagar.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] I've never seen that before and that is amazing Space, you're amazing. Stay that way.

At first i thought this was going to be about a mexican tv station... Ah well

I just have to leave this here [video=youtube;KLYJhOt0RiU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLYJhOt0RiU[/video]

[QUOTE=Remscar;35761552]At first i thought this was going to be about a mexican tv station... Ah well[/QUOTE] I thought it was gonna be bout a website that sells only sombreros

[QUOTE=slayer20;35761550]I've never seen that before and that is amazing Space, you're amazing. Stay that way.[/QUOTE] If you think that's amazing, man, you haven't even seen the least of it. Let me indulge you on the brilliance of our universe for a moment, using only pictures taken by a single telescope - Hubble [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO2_350x325.jpg[/IMG] Ant nebula [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO3_350x313.jpg[/IMG] Eskimo nebula [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO9_350x170.jpg[/IMG] Galaxies merging [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO8_350x312.jpg[/IMG] Starry night [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO7_350x261.jpg[/IMG] Swan nebula Of course that's just a quick selection. The crazy colors, amazing structures and unbelievable reality of our cosmos is a trip of wonders and imagination turned reality. Beauty everywhere, but jaw-dropping bewilderment in the nature of it's scope and very existence. On the note of beauty and imagination; imagine living in a system near a globular cluster right outside our galaxy. Each morning over the ocean you'd not be greeted by a sunrise, but a galaxy rise majestically filling the morning sky.

It's too bad those aren't true colours.

[QUOTE=Kendra;35761743]It's too bad those aren't true colours.[/QUOTE] They have those tones, but their method of photographing monochrome may overblow them and render them not as accurate as they are. Nonetheless it doesn't change the fact that amazing colors and beauty such as that actually exists out there, along with untold mysteries. Either way, here's a gorgeous picture of the galaxy in the OP. [IMG]http://www.astro.virginia.edu/whyastro/sombrero.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=mac338;35761685]If you think that's amazing, man, you haven't even seen the least of it. Let me indulge you on the brilliance of our universe for a moment, using only pictures taken by a single telescope - Hubble [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO2_350x325.jpg[/IMG] Ant nebula [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO3_350x313.jpg[/IMG] Eskimo nebula [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO9_350x170.jpg[/IMG] Galaxies merging [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO8_350x312.jpg[/IMG] Starry night [IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/img/galleries/hubble/NO7_350x261.jpg[/IMG] Swan nebula Of course that's just a quick selection. The crazy colors, amazing structures and unbelievable reality of our cosmos is a trip of wonders and imagination turned reality. Beauty everywhere, but jaw-dropping bewilderment in the nature of it's scope and very existence. On the note of beauty and imagination; imagine living in a system near a globular cluster right outside our galaxy. Each morning over the ocean you'd not be greeted by a sunrise, but a galaxy rise majestically filling the morning sky.[/QUOTE] A lot of these aren't real colors by the way. I don't think the cameras really take pictures in color. I think they are filled in by our detection of the lights they give off, including non visible lights. The idea that a galaxy is red, for example, might not be as important to us as what its spectrum looks like as far as infrared, microwaves, gamma radiation, ultraviolet, etc. [editline]29th April 2012[/editline] That doesn't mean that the sights aren't beautiful, but they might be beautiful in different ways than we might think.

[QUOTE=Blazyd;35761205]Reminds me of this galaxy [t]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0912/NGC660Hagar.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] [I]"What....Am I?"[/I] Galaxy with personality issues.

[QUOTE=booster;35762011][I]"What....Am I?"[/I] Galaxy with personality issues.[/QUOTE] "No ma it's not just a phase I'm going through, I really am bi-accretional"

[QUOTE=mac338;35761902]They have those tones, but their method of photographing monochrome may overblow them and render them not as accurate as they are. Nonetheless it doesn't change the fact that amazing colors and beauty such as that actually exists out there, along with untold mysteries. Either way, here's a gorgeous picture of the galaxy in the OP. [IMG]http://www.astro.virginia.edu/whyastro/sombrero.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] that's my background :v: already have it set up so half is one one screen, other is on the other I don't know much about space but it looks really cool so why the hell not?

[QUOTE=J!NX;35762249]that's my background :v: already have it set up so half is one one screen, other is on the other I don't know much about space but it looks really cool so why the hell not?[/QUOTE] How do you do that by the way? My screens show the same wallpaper on each monitor, it would be cool having one half an image per screen. It might look funky though, since my screens have two different resolutions :v:

[QUOTE=yawmwen;35762285]How do you do that by the way? My screens show the same wallpaper on each monitor, it would be cool having one half an image per screen. It might look funky though, since my screens have two different resolutions :v:[/QUOTE] Ultramon.