APOD: The Sombrero Galaxy from Webb and Hubble (2024 Nov 26)

[Ann]

ThanX Ann for your exciting report. Here is the comparison with the Andromeda galaxy. Jac

Click to view full size image

original data: NASA/ESA/CSA (JWST/CHANDRA)

Click to view full size image

original data: NASA/ESA (HERSCHEL/SST/CHANDRA)

The contrast between the distribution of X-ray sources in M104 and Andromeda is striking indeed! But then again, Andromeda does not have an elliptical component or any sort of large diffuse halo.

Okay, well, correction... this is the size of Andromeda's halo:

Halo of Andromeda (purple). Credit: NASA, ESA, J. DePasquale and E. Wheatley (STScI), and Z. Levay (background image)

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All right! But Andromeda's halo is very, very different from the halo of M104. Read about Andromeda's halo here.

Ann

Can we say a large regular galaxy has 2 components, a planar viscous gas/dust disk and a spherical purely stellar bulge,
if the bulge is tiny then it is called a core and the host galaxy is called a disk galaxy;
if the disk is tiny then the host galaxy is called an elliptic galaxy?

Sounds good to me, except the core is not the bulge. The core is tiny, and the bulge is larger than the core.

Ann

[VictorBorun]

The contrast between the distribution of X-ray sources in M104 and Andromeda is striking indeed! But then again, Andromeda does not have an elliptical component or any sort of large diffuse halo.

Okay, well, correction... this is the size of Andromeda's halo:

Halo of Andromeda (purple). Credit: NASA, ESA, J. DePasquale and E. Wheatley (STScI), and Z. Levay (background image)

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All right! But Andromeda's halo is very, very different from the halo of M104. Read about Andromeda's halo here.

Ann

Can we say a large regular galaxy has 2 components, a planar viscous gas/dust disk and a spherical purely stellar bulge,
if the bulge is tiny then it is called a core and the host galaxy is called a disk galaxy;
if the disk is tiny then the host galaxy is called an elliptic galaxy?

Sounds good to me, except the core is not the bulge. The core is tiny, and the bulge is larger than the core.

Ann

Ethan Siegel at last got to sum up the JWST's new Sombrero and mentioned that a bulge may have formed from the remnants of all the other galaxies in a cluster that the Sombrero had devoured

The Sombrero likely represents a galactic end-state: where a massive spiral has completely devoured its neighbors.

The numerous X-sources in the bulge and the halo must be massive black holes. I think it means they had been central BHs in the galaxies past