Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Explanation: A small, dark, nebula looks isolated near the center of this telescopic close-up. The wedge-shaped cosmic cloudlet lies within a relatively crowded region of space though. About 7,000 light-years distant and filled with glowing gas and an embedded cluster of young stars, the region is known as M16 or the Eagle Nebula. Hubble's iconic images of the Eagle Nebula include the famous star-forming Pillars of Creation, towering structures of interstellar gas and dust 4 to 5 light-years long. But this small dark nebula, known to some as a Bok globule, is a fraction of a light-year across. The Bok globule stands out in silhouette against the expansive background of M16's diffuse glow. Found scattered within emission nebulae and star clusters, Bok globules are small interstellar clouds of cold molecular gas and obscuring dust that also form stars within their dense, collapsing cores.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn
Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy,
Accessibility,
Notices;
A service of:
ASD at
NASA /
GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.