The kinetic temperature of Barnard 68

We have observed the nearby isolated globule Barnard 68 (B68) in the (J, K) = (1,1) and (2,2) inversion lines of ammonia. The gas kinetic temperature derived from these is T = 10 +/- 1.2 K. The observed line-widths are almost thermal: DeltaV = 0.181 +/- 0.003 km s(-1) (DeltaV(therm) = 0.164 +/- 0.010 km s(-1)), supporting the earlier hypothesis that B68 is in hydrostatic equilibrium. The kinetic temperature is an input parameter to the physical cloud model put forward recently, and we discuss the impact of the new value in this context.