Coalsack nebula facts for kids
The Coalsack dark nebula (or simply the Coalsack) is the most prominent dark nebula in the skies. It can easily be seen with the naked eye as a dark patch silhouetted against the southern Milky Way.
It was known pre-historically in the Southern Hemisphere and was observed by Vicente Yáñez Pinzón in 1499. The Coalsack is about 600 light years away from Earth, in the constellation Crux.
General information
The first observation was reported by Vicente Yáñez Pinzón in 1499. It was named the dark Canopus and was also called Magellan's Spot or “Black Magellanic Cloud” in opposition to the Magellanic Clouds.
In 1970 it was proven that the Coalsack is not totally black. It has a very dim glow (10% of the brightness of the surrounding Milky Way), which comes from the reflection of the stars it obscures.
The Coalsack is important in Australian Aboriginal astronomy and forms the head of the Emu in the sky in several Aboriginal cultures. Amongst the Wardaman people, it is said to be the head and shoulders of a law-man watching the people to ensure they do not break traditional law.
In Inca astronomy this nebula was called Yutu, meaning a partridge-like southern bird or Tinamou.
In fiction
The Coalsack is mentioned in the Star Trek: The Original Series episodes "The Immunity Syndrome" and "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", as well as 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke.
In the Solar Queen series by Andre Norton, several characters swear "...by the Coalsack's Ripcord!"
The Coalsack figures prominently in the Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's science fiction novel The Mote in God's Eye and its sequels, The Gripping Hand and Outies.
Also, Henry De Vere Stacpoole described the Coalsack in his novel The Blue Lagoon (1908), as Lestrange observes it from the deck of the Northumberland, "In the Milky Way, near the Southern Cross, occurs a terrible circular abyss, the Coal Sack. So sharply defined is it, so suggestive of a void and bottomless cavern, that the contemplation of it afflicts the imaginative mind with vertigo. To the naked eye it is as black and dismal as death, but the smallest telescope reveals it beautiful and populous with stars. Lestrange’s eyes travelled from this mystery to the burning cross, and …"
The Coalsack is mentioned in the Futurama episode "Hell Is Other Robots".
In the film Night on the Galactic Railroad, the character Campanella ends going to the Coalsack.
In the film The Chronicles of Riddick, the character Imam convinces Riddick to help his people against the Necromongers and says: "The Coalsack planets are gone."
In Brian J. Clarke's novella The Expediter, a world of mysterious towers – and the aliens studying them – are found "behind the Coalsack".
Images for kids
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The dark Coalsack Nebula can be seen as an obscuring smudge across the Milky Way.
See also
In Spanish: Nebulosa Saco de Carbón para niños
