The Sombrero Galaxy, named after the broad-brimmed Mexican hat, is a spiral immersed in an unusually large central bulge and is seen edge-on in this image. The central glowing bulge is formed from billions of old stars, with silhouetted dust forming the rim of the sombrero.

The very centre of the galaxy is thought to house a black hole. M104 is 50 million light years from earth (300 million million million miles).

WHAT DOES THE "M" MEAN IN M104?
While hunting for comets in the skies above France, 18th century astronomer Charles Messier (pronounced MESS-EE-AY) made a list of the positions of about 100 fuzzy, diffuse looking objects which appeared at fixed positions in the sky. Although these objects looked like comets, Messier knew that since they did not move with respect to the background stars they could not be the undiscovered comets he was searching for. These objects are in fact gaseous nebulae, star clusters and galaxies. Objects on Messier's list are still referred to by their "Messier number" and are prefixed by M.

Photo Credit: Anglo-Australian Observatory