NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for 5 October 2026 shows M104, better known as the Sombrero Galaxy. Most pictures of this galaxy focus on its bright central bulge and the dark band of dust across its nearly edge-on disk, which make it look like a wide-brimmed hat.
This image shows what lies farther out. A long, deep exposure picks up very faint structures in the galaxy's outer regions. These are tidal streams: arcs of stars pulled away from smaller companion galaxies that came too close to M104 and were torn apart by its gravity.
Streams like these work as a fossil record of how a galaxy grew. They help astronomers work out how large galaxies gained mass by absorbing smaller neighbours. M104 lies roughly 30 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, and both professional and amateur astronomers often photograph it.
