APOD: 2023 January 29 – Barnard 68: Dark Molecular Cloud

Good afternoon, Rallypoint, and welcome to the January 29th edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): "Barnard 68: Dark Molecular Cloud." Found relatively nearby (only 500 light years away) in the constellation Ophiuchus, American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard added this nebula to his catalog of dark nebulae in 1919. It has been a regular APOD feature fot the last 20 years. The estimated mass of this cloud is about twice that of the Sun, and it is approximately one-half light year across.

If you look at Barnard 68 in infrared, you see a different story (I'll post that image in a separate comment). While being opaque to visible light, some 1,000 other stars are visible through this cloud at infrared wavelengths. The well-defined edges to Barnard 68 suggest to researchers that it is near to gravitational collapse, meaning that future generations could be looking at a new star in the distant (~200,000 years) future.