August 6, 2014 Lupus 3, a dark cloud in Scorpius Image Credit: ESO/F. Comeron Lupus 3 is a dark, star-forming cloud with an associated cluster of brilliant stars, located about 600 light-years from Earth within our Milky Way Galaxy in the southern constellation of Scorpius (the Scorpion). The section shown here is about five light-years [continue reading]
December 9, 2013 Barnard 68, a dark cloud in Ophiuchus Image Credit: ESO Barnard 68 (named after the American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard) is a molecular cloud, dark absorption nebula or Bok globule of about half a light-year across and a mass about twice that of the Sun, located within our Milky Way galaxy, only [continue reading]
September 29, 2013 LDN 673, a dark cloud complex in Aquila Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona (http://skycenter.arizona.edu/gallery/nebulae/LDN673) LDN 673 (Lynds’ Dark Nebula 673) is a highly fractured and very dense dark cloud complex of about 7 light-years across, located in the center of the Aquila Rift, some 300 – 600 [continue reading]
August 30, 2013 W40, a stellar nursery in Aquila Image Credits: ESA and the SPIRE & PACS consortia, Ph. André (CEA Saclay) for the Gould’s Belt Key Programme Consortia W40 (also known as Sh2-64 and RCW 174) is a stellar nursery of some 25 light-years across, located between 1,000 and 2,000 light years-away from Earth [continue reading]
New observations using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter array (ALMA) have given astronomers the best view yet of a monster star in the process of forming within a dark cloud. A stellar womb with over 500 times the mass of the Sun has been found — the largest ever seen in the Milky Way — [continue reading]
An astronomical team led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg (MPIA) has gained new insights into a birthplace of stars. Using the ESA’s Herschel Space Telescope and evaluation techniques more commonly encountered in Hollywood film productions, the researchers produced a three-dimensional map of the dark cloud Barnard 68, a [continue reading]