An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A prominent → dark nebula visible to the naked eye as a dark patch silhouetted against the starry band of → Milky Way in the Southern sky. It obscures an area of about 5 by 7 degrees on the sky and extends beyond the borders of → Crux into neighboring → constellations → Centaurus and → Musca. It lies at a distance of approximately 500 → light-years.

Etymology (EN): → coal; sack, from M.E., from O.E. sacc, from L. saccus, from Gk. sakkos, of Semitic origin (cf. Heb. saq “sack”).

Etymology (PE): Guni “sack;” zoqâl, → charcoal.