A small, dark, nebula looks isolated near the center of this
telescopic close-up. The wedge-shaped cosmic cloudlet lies within a relatively
crowded region of space though. About 7,000 light-years distant and filled with
glowing gas and an embedded cluster of young stars, the region is known as M16
or the Eagle Nebula. Hubble’s iconic images of the Eagle Nebula include the famous
star-forming Pillars of Creation, towering structures of interstellar gas and dust 4
to 5 light-years long. But this small dark nebula, known to some as a Bok globule, is a fraction of a light-year across. The Bok
globule stands out in silhouette against the expansive background of M16’s
diffuse glow. Found scattered within emission nebulae and star clusters, Bok
globules are small interstellar clouds of cold molecular gas and obscuring dust
that also form stars within their dense, collapsing cores.
Image & info via APOD
Image Credit & Copyright: Peter Bresseler
Source: Small Dark Nebula
– Scents of Science
No comments:
Post a Comment