The Barnard 5 complex of gas is in the process of becoming a multiple-star system. B5 is a molecular cloud located in the constellation Perseus, approximately 800 light-years away. It contains one young protostar and three dense condensations that astronomers say will collapse into stars in the astronomically-short period of 40,000 years. Astronomers discovered that filaments of gas in the cloud are fragmenting, and the fragments are beginning to form into additional stars that will become a multiple-star system.