|
Bok Globule Barnard 89 The Lagoon Nebula contains a large number of dark objects known as Bok globules — opaque clouds of gas and dust that, if massive enough, will shrink and collapse under their own weight to create new stars. The Dutch–American astronomer Bart Bok first marked these clumps as possible star-forming regions. The American astronomer E. E. Barnard (best known for the discovery of the eponymous Barnard’s Star) catalogued the most prominent globules within the Lagoon Nebula, and so we call them today Barnard 88, 89 and 269. These globules have diameters of several 10,000 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth, or a few million million kilometres. The globule denoted as Barnard 89, situated close to the open cluster of stars NGC 6530, is very easy to find as a conspicuous dark patch in the middle of the brightly glowing region. Barnard 89 also includes a tornado-like structure whipped up by powerful winds as the clouds of gas and dust in the nebula are heated by the strong ultraviolet light of a nearby hot massive star. Some estimates suggest that these dark nebulae extend as far back into space as they are wide.
View file segment |
|
|