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Credit & Copyright: Peter Bresseler
Explanation:
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.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: absorption nebula - bok globule - molecular cloud
Publications with words: absorption nebula - bok globule - molecular cloud
See also: