Astronomy Picture Of The Day: Barnard 68 is a dark nebula!

 

#NASA, #Space, #astronomy, #διάστημα

Barnard 68 is a dark nebula located 500 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. It measures approximately 0.5 light-years across, and the temperature of its interior regions does not exceed 16 K (-257°C) due to the nebula's low transparency to radiation. The nebula is completely opaque in the visible spectrum; however, as the observation range shifts toward the infrared, it becomes more transparent, allowing us to see an increasing number of stars that were previously obscured by it (Illustration 2). You will very often see the caption "Boötes Void" beneath photos of this nebula. Do not believe this under any circumstances! Barnard 68 is an ordinary, relatively small (0.5 light-years) formation within our galaxy, situated quite close to the Solar System. Voids, on the other hand, are gigantic empty spaces (spanning hundreds of millions of light-years) within the large-scale structure of the Universe, virtually devoid of galaxies and galaxy clusters. For instance, one of the largest discovered objects of this type—the Canes Venatici Supervoid—measures over a billion light-years across.