On Halloween, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reveals this spooky image of a dark nebula that creates the illusion of a wolf-like silhouette against a colorful cosmic background. Aptly named the Dark Wolf Nebula, it was captured in a 283-million-pixel image by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile.

Found in the constellation Scorpius, near the center of the Milky Way in the sky, the Dark Wolf Nebula is located about 5,300 light-years from Earth. This image takes up an area of ​​the sky equivalent to four full moons, but it’s actually part of an even larger nebula called Gum 55. If you look closely, the wolf might actually be a werewolf, its hands ready to grab passers-by unsuspecting…

If you thought darkness equaled emptiness, think again. Dark nebulae are cold clouds of cosmic dust so dense that they obscure the light of stars and other objects behind them. As the name suggests, they do not emit visible light, unlike other nebulae. The dust grains inside them absorb visible light and only that allowed to pass to radiation at longer wavelengthssuch as infrared light. Astronomers study these frozen dust clouds because they often contain new stars in the making.

Of course, tracking the ghostly presence of the wolf in the sky is only possible because it contrasts with a bright background. This image shows in spectacular detail how the dark wolf stands out against the bright star-forming clouds behind it. The colorful clouds are made up mostly of hydrogen gas and glow in reddish tones, excited by intense UV radiation from the newborn stars inside them.

Some dark nebulae such as The Coal Bag Nebulacan be seen with the naked eye –– and plays a key role in how First Nations interpret the sky (1) –– but not the Dark Wolf. This image was created using data from The VLT research telescopewhich is owned by the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) and is hosted at ESO Paranal Observatoryin the Atacama Desert of Chile. The telescope is equipped with a camera specially designed to map the southern sky in visible light.

The picture was compiled from images taken at different times, each with a filter that lets in a different color of light. They were all captured during Hα VST Photometric Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+), which studied approximately 500 million objects in the Milky Way. Surveys like this help scientists better understand the life cycle of stars in our home galaxy, and the resulting data are made available to the public via ESO’s science portal. Explore this treasure trove of data for yourself: who knows what other strange shapes you’ll discover in the dark?

Notes

(1) The Mapuche people of south-central Chile refer to the Coalsack Nebula as “pozoko” (water fountain), and the Incas called it “yutu” (a partridge-like bird).

More information

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists around the world to unlock the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class field observatories – which astronomers use to address exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy – and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organization in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 member states (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States ). United Kingdom), together with host country Chile and with Australia as a strategic partner. ESO headquarters and its visitor center and planetarium, ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama desert, a wonderful place with unique conditions for observing the sky, is home to our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and the Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as research telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory in the world. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the sky in the millimeter and submillimeter range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s largest eye in the sky” – ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our in-country operations and engage with partners and Chilean society.

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