Seen almost edge-on, this galaxy looks like a wide-brimmed hat — hence its name. Its official name is Messier 104, and it lies roughly 30 million light-years away.

The dark band across the middle is a ring of dust, silhouetted against the light of billions of stars. The bright central bulge is unusually large, and at its centre is a supermassive black hole.

Hubble first photographed the Sombrero in detail in 2003. In 2025, its images were reprocessed to show finer detail. Look past the galaxy into the background: those tiny smudges are other galaxies, far more distant still. Every one contains billions of stars of its own.