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Bok Globule Barnard 296 Despite appearances, this dark cloud of opaque matter is nothing like a black hole! Dark clouds such as this one, floating in the southern region of the Lagoon Nebula and known as Bok Globule Barnard 296, may in fact be great nascent star-forming regions. As gas and dust particles mutually attract each other under the force of gravity, more and more matter collects and condenses. The temperature increases in the protostar’s central region until nuclear reactions begin and a new star bursts into radiant life. Globules such as Barnard 296 have masses up to 15 times or so that of the Sun. They may bear several stars, though some clouds are not massive enough to yield another generation of stars. Being dark and relatively small makes these Bok globules difficult to observe. Plotted against a bright background, such as the Lagoon Nebula region, helps make Barnard 296 unusually prominent and easy to detect even with a modest telescope. Bok globules are named after the Dutch-American astronomer Bart Bok, who first marked them as possible star-forming regions. In his catalogue, the American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard noted Bok Globule Barnard 296, as well as the objects Barnard 88 and Barnard 89, as dark nebulae.
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