Patrons of the Slaughtered Lamb, the traditional Yorkshire pub with a striking setting in John Landis’ American Werewolf in London, may want to keep their werewolf on the ground, but the European Southern Observatory (ESO) saw Halloween as the perfect opportunity to unleash an image of a cosmic beast.

This blood-clotting celestial werewolf, image by Very large telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile is called the “Dark Wolf Nebula”. In the image, the “wolf’s head” is clear, and just below this striking appearance are dark claws that almost look like this celestial lycanthrope is about to strike a terrified victim.

Part of the larger Gum 55 nebulaThe Dark Wolf Nebula couldn’t be further from the swamps of East Proctor, the setting for the unforgettable werewolf attack that opens Landis’ 1981 classic, which many of us will be returning to for a ghoulish fix this Halloween night. This nebula is located around 5,300 Lightyears from the Earth close to the heart Milky way.

Don’t be fooled by the dark areas of the Dark Wolf Nebula that appear to form this cosmic terror. They are anything but empty. These dark spots are filled with dense, cool cosmic gas and dust.