<p>Strangely glowing dark clouds float serenely in this remarkable and beautiful image taken with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope" class="extiw" title="en:Hubble Space Telescope">Hubble Space Telescope</a>. These dense, opaque dust clouds — known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/globules" class="extiw" title="en:globules">globules</a> — are silhouetted against nearby bright stars in the busy star-forming region, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_2944" class="extiw" title="en:IC 2944">IC 2944</a>.
</p><p>Astronomer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._David_Thackeray" class="extiw" title="en:A. David Thackeray">A.D. Thackeray</a> first spied the globules in IC 2944 in 1950. Globules like these have been known since Dutch-American astronomer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Bok" class="extiw" title="en:Bart Bok">Bart Bok</a> first drew attention to such objects in 1947.
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But astronomers still know very little about their origin and nature, except that they are generally associated with areas of star formation, called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HII_regions" class="extiw" title="en:HII regions">HII regions</a> due to the presence of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hydrogen_gas" class="extiw" title="en:hydrogen gas">hydrogen gas</a>. IC 2944 is filled with gas and dust that is illuminated and heated by a loose cluster of massive stars. These stars are much hotter and much more massive than our Sun.
NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2002/01/image/a">http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2002/01/image/a</a> (<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2002-01-a-full_tif.tif">TIFF image</a>)