Ellen Phiddian
Cosmos science journalist
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released a composite picture of the Dark Wolf Nebula – which is 5,300 light-years away and, as its name suggests, is shaped like a wolf.
Dark nebulae are star-forming regions, filled with cold dust. Unlike other nebulae, they don’t emit visible light – leading to these dark shapes seen against backdrops of bright star-forming clouds.
The Dark Wolf Nebula is in the constellation of Scorpius, and is part of a bigger nebula called Gum 55.
It’s not visible to the naked eye, but the ESO photographed it through the VLT Survey Telescope, at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.
The picture is a composite of several images taken at different times, with filters focussing on different types of light.
Other dark nebulae can be seen without a very large telescope, like the Coalsack Nebula near the Southern Cross, which can be spotted with the naked eye. It forms the head of the famous “dark emu”, which features in the astronomy of many Aboriginal cultures.
