APOD: 2026 October 5 – M104: The Sombrero Galaxy’s Tidal Streams

Automatically curated summary from NASA.

According to NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, a deep long-exposure photograph of M104, the Sombrero galaxy, reveals a bright, hazy halo containing tidal streams and a diagonal ring structure. Photographed over seven days in mid-2026 from Namibia by Engelbert Vollmer, these newly highlighted stellar structures provide fresh evidence that M104 experienced a violent history involving collisions and mergers with smaller galaxies. Located approximately 30 million light-years from Earth, the galaxy spans about 150,000 light-years across.

Context and limitations

The provided text is an excerpt from a daily educational feature and does not cite a peer-reviewed study to independently verify the galaxy merger conclusion.