Barnard 335
Barnard 335
Barnard 335, also called B335 or Lynds 663, is a small, dark cloud in the constellation Aquila. It is a Bok globule that hides a single very young, low-mass protostar at its center. The cloud was first found in 1927 by Barnard.
Distance and size
The protostar and cloud lie about 164.5 parsecs (roughly 540 light-years) from Earth. The cloud looks like a small blob with a bright center in infrared pictures.
A single newborn star
The central protostar is in the earliest stage of star formation (Class 0). It is still pulling material from its surroundings and has a forming disk. Gas moves toward the star and also streams out in opposite directions, creating a bipolar outflow with jets that light up shocked gas in objects known as Herbig-Haro (HH) flows, including HH119 A–C and several infrared shocks.
What’s been observed
- The protostar has been studied with many telescopes, including IRAS, ALMA, and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
- ALMA detected material falling toward the star and found complex organic molecules very close to it.
- Estimates of the protostar’s mass vary, roughly from a few hundredths to a few tenths of a solar mass, and its age is about 30,000–40,000 years.
- The star’s environment shows a very dense core within a larger, comet-shaped cloud, likely shaped by winds from nearby stars.
Shocks, variability, and growth
Several shocks from the outflow have been observed over the years, with new activity seen in 2015–2022 and the latest shock appearing in 2022. JWST images reveal both slow, outer shocks and faster inner ones pointing away from the protostar, helping scientists understand how the newborn star is gathering mass and shaping its surroundings.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:20 (CET).