Astronomers working with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have published an image. It shows the galaxy M 104, better known as the Sombrero Galaxy.
The Sombrero Galaxy is located 31 million light-years away from the Milky Way. It is well known to all amateur astronomers for its characteristic appearance: a bright core surrounded by a band of dust.
In the mid-infrared image of JWST, the core is not luminous. Instead, the smooth inner disk is visible, along with details of the dust ring surrounding the galaxy. Observations have shown that they contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. They may indicate the presence of young star-forming regions.
However, unlike some of the galaxies studied with JWST, the Sombrero galaxy is not a powerful center of star formation. It forms stars with a total mass of less than one solar mass per year, while our Milky Way forms stars with about two solar masses per year.
There is an active galactic nucleus in the center of the Sombrero Galaxy. Its center is a supermassive black hole whose mass is 9 billion times greater than the mass of the Sun. It is rather quiet, and gradually absorbs matter from the surrounding accretion disk, which is accompanied by the formation of relatively small jets.
The Sombrero galaxy is also home to about 2,000 globular clusters, which are clusters of hundreds of thousands of old stars held together by gravity. Systems of this type serve as a natural laboratory for astronomers. Thousands of stars in the same system with the same age but different masses and other properties present an intriguing opportunity for comparative studies.
Stunning images like this one and many discoveries in the study of exoplanets, galaxies, regions of active star formation and our solar system are just the beginning. Scientists from around the world have recently gathered in virtual space to apply to participate in JWST observations during its fourth year of science operations, which will begin in July 2025.
Competition during JWST’s run is higher than ever. By the October 15, 2024, deadline, a record 2,377 applications had been submitted, requesting about 78,000 hours of observation time. For better understanding, the overshoot of requests (the ratio of requested observation hours to actual available time) was approximately 9 to 1.
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