Thackeray's Globules in IC 2944
Strangely glowing dark clouds float serenely in this remarkable and beautiful image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. These dense, opaque dust clouds - known as 'globules' - are silhouetted against nearby bright stars in the busy star-forming region, IC 2944.
Astronomer A.D. Thackeray first spied the globules in IC 2944 in 1950. Globules like these have been known since Dutch-American astronomer Bart Bok first drew attention to such objects in 1947.
But astronomers still know very little about their origin and nature, except that they are generally associated with areas of star formation, called 'HII regions' due to the presence of hydrogen gas. IC 2944 is filled with gas and dust that is illuminated and heated by a loose cluster of massive stars. These stars are much hotter and much more massive than our Sun.
Credit:
About the Image
NASA caption
| Id: | opo0201a |
| Type: | Observation |
| Release date: | 3 January 2002, 06:00 |
| Size: | 1480 x 1498 px |
About the Object
| Name: | IC 2944, Thackeray's Globules |
| Type: | • Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star Formation • Milky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Dark : Bok Globule • Nebulae Images/Videos |
| Distance: | 6500 light years |
Colours & filters
| Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
| Optical B |
439 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
| Optical V |
555 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
| Optical H-alpha |
656 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
| Optical R |
675 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
