LBN 438 - The Little Northern Doomsday Machine

Not far from the Gecko Nebula (LBN 437), the cometary globule LBN 438 resides. It’s part of the same large star-forming region 1,200 light years away that contains the Gecko, Sh2-116, and other emission regions called the Lacerta OB1 Association.

Cometary globules “are interstellar clouds with comet-like [appearance], consisting of compact, dusty, and opaque heads and long, faintly luminous tails.” Cometary globules are a subclassification of what are called Bok Globules. Among the coldest objects in the universe at around 10 Kelvin (just 10 degrees above absolute zero), Bok Globules are generally smaller, dense formations of dark gas and dust that are ideal locations for new star formation. They are named for the Dutch-American astronomer, Bart Bok, who first observed them in the 1940s.

Fans of the original Star Trek series may, like me, be inspired to think of the Doomsday Machine episode. In this tight crop, you may even be able to see Commodore Matt Decker’s USS Constellation:

There are at least two other globules I know of that evoke this same scene. One is the much larger NGC 1788 in Orion, and the other is CG 4 in the Southern hemisphere. Look for images of those on this website at some point.