Eerie Cosmic Wolf unveiled in breathtaking ESO image for Halloween

The Dark Wolf Nebula is visible in the sky within the constellation of Scorpius, not far from the center of the Milky Way. It is located approximately 5,800 light-years from Earth and is part of the larger Gum 55 nebula. The image spans an area of the sky comparable to four full Moons.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) presented this photograph for Halloween. The announcement noted that, upon closer inspection, the wolf might even resemble a werewolf, as though it's reaching out to snare unsuspecting victims with its paws.

"If you thought that darkness equals emptiness, think again," the announcement stated.

ESO's resources explain that dark nebulae are cold clouds of dust so dense that they block the light from stars located behind them. Unlike other kinds of nebulae, these objects don't emit visible light because the dust particles absorb this type of radiation. However, infrared radiation can pass through them.

ESO also mentioned that some dark nebulae are visible to the naked eye. An example is the Coal Sack Nebula. The Mapuche people, who live in south-central Chile, call it "pozoko," meaning a water well. The Incas, on the other hand, referred to it as "yutu," likening it to a bird similar to a partridge.

The image of the cosmic dark wolf was made possible by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), a sky survey telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The telescope is owned by the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy (INAF). It is equipped with a specially designed camera for mapping the sky in the visible spectrum.

The showcased image consists of 283 million pixels and is a composite of photographs taken at various times and with different filters, as part of a project called VST Photometric Hα Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+), which examined about 500 million objects in the Milky Way.