How to Become a Star: Dark Nebula Barnard 68—"The Ink Spot" | ESO

How to Become a Star: Dark Nebula Barnard 68—"The Ink Spot" | ESO

How do stars like our Sun come into being? This photograph shows an unusual sky field in the Milky Way band. It is centered on one of the classical, dark globules, known as Barnard 68 (B68) after the American astronomer, Edward E. Barnard (1857 - 1923), who included it in a list of such objects, published in 1919. It appears as a compact, opaque and rather sharply defined object against a rich, background star field. Even on this image that registers many faint stars in the area, not a single foreground star is observed. This is a clear sign that this globule must be relatively nearby. Interstellar clouds consist of gas and dust, including many molecules, some of which contain carbon atoms (i.e. organic). For a long time considered to be "holes in the sky", molecular clouds are now known to be among the coolest objects in the Universe (the temperature is approx. 10 K, or -263 °C). Moreover, and most importantly, they are nurseries of stars and planets. 

Distance: ~500 light years

It still remains a mystery how a dark cloud like Barnard 68 at some moment begins to contract and subsequently transforms itself into hydrogen-burning stars. However, deep images of these clouds, such as this one obtained by FORS1 on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) ANTU, may provide important clues. This small cloud seems to be in its very earliest phase of collapse. It has a diameter of only 7 light-months (approx. 0.2 pc) and it is located at a distance of about 500 light-years (160 pc) towards the southern constellation Ophiuchus (The Serpent-holder). This three-color composite was reproduced from one blue (B), one green-yellow (V) and one near-infrared (I) exposure that were obtained with VLT ANTU and FORS1. The field measures 6.8x6.8 arcmin 2. The image consists of 2048x2048 pixels, each measuring 0.20 arcsec. North is up and East is to the left.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Image Date: March 27, 1999

Release Date: April 30, 1999

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