                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    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.

                                 2026 May 25
    A starfield with a blue background shows several unusual brown globs.
    They are generally irregularly shaped. Please see the explanation for
                         more detailed information.

                            Thackeray's Globules
                    Image Credit & Copyright: John Hayes

   Explanation: What are these strange space globs? Situated in rich star
   fields and glowing hydrogen gas, these opaque clouds of interstellar
   dust and gas are so large they might be able to form stars. Their home
   is known as IC 2944, a bright stellar nursery located about 7,600 light
   years away toward the constellation of the Centaur (Centaurus). The
   largest of these dark globules, first spotted by A. D. Thackeray in
   1950 using a telescope in South Africa, is likely two separate but
   overlapping clouds, each more than one light-year wide. Along with
   other data, the featured Hubble palette image from the El Sauce
   Observatory in Chile, indicates that Thackeray's globules are fractured
   and churning as a result of intense ultraviolet radiation from young,
   hot stars already energizing and heating the bright emission nebula.
   These and similar dark globules known to be associated with other star
   forming regions may ultimately be dissipated by their hostile
   environment -- like cosmic lumps of butter in a hot frying pan.

              Interstellar Jigsaw: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
                   Tomorrow's picture: different galaxies
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