An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A relatively dense cloud of → interstellar gas, mainly molecular, whose dust particles obscure the light of stars behind it. A famous example is the → Horsehead Nebula silhouetted against the reddish glow of the → H II region IC 434. Individual dark clouds come in a range of sizes from tens of → light-years to tiny → Bok globules of only a few thousands → astronomical units.

→ dark; → cloud.

A → dark cloud characterized by a → visual extinction A_v≥ 10² mag. IRDCs are opaque even at 8 μm, and can be seen in silhouette against the bright diffuse → mid-infrared emission in the → interstellar medium.

→ infrared; → dark; → cloud.

Any of the several → dark clouds lying in the direction of the constellation → Lupus between → Galactic longitudes 334° < l < 352° and → Galactic latitudes +5° < b < +25°. In terms of angular extent the whole group is one of the largest low-mass star forming complexes on the sky, and it also contains one of the richest associations of → T Tauri stars. An average distance of about 150 pc places it among the nearest star forming regions, together with those in Corona Australis, Ophiuchus, Taurus-Auriga, and Chamaeleon (Comeron, 2008, in Handbook of Star Forming Regions Vol. II, PASP, Reipurth, ed.).

→ Lupus; → dark; → cloud.