MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE
ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
Contact: JPL/Jane Platt 818-354-0880 Space Telescope Science
Institute/Ray Villard 410-338-4514 IMAGE ADVISORY January 3,
2002 HUBBLE CAPTURES OPAQUE GLOBULES IN SPACE Strangely glowing,
floating dark clouds are silhouetted against nearby bright stars
in a busy star-forming region viewed by NASA's Hubble Space
Telescope. The image showing dense, opaque dust clouds -- known
as globules -- in the star-forming region IC 2944 is available
online at or or . It was taken by Hubble's Wide Field and
Planetary Camera 2, designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Little is known about the origin
and nature of these globules in IC 2944, which were first found
by astronomer A.D. Thackeray in 1950. Globules are generally
associated with large hydrogen-emitting star-formation regions,
which give off the glowing light o