Beauty often comes in small packages. Take Circinus the Compasses. This southern constellation ranks 85th in size among the sky’s 88 stellar groupings, yet it holds the stunning dark nebula known as the Circinus West molecular cloud. A dense region of dust and cold gas, Circinus West effectively blocks all the light from the rich star background. The few bright spots poking through the cloud’s dark tendrils represent baby stars just emerging from their dusty cocoons. The nebula forms the western part of the larger Circinus molecular cloud, which lies some 2,500 light-years from Earth and contains about 250,000 times the mass of the Sun. Circinus West stands just 3° southeast of brilliant Alpha Centauri. The bright star at the photo’s upper right is 3rd-magnitude Theta Circini.
