Inside the brilliant however unassumingly named nebula Gum 55 lies a darkish nebula — a rift of mud grains that soak up seen mild — making a swatch of darkness in opposition to the glow of brilliant fuel. Fittingly named for its form, the Darkish Wolf Nebula isn’t any mere pet — it spans an space some 4 instances the dimensions of the Full Moon.

Gum 55 is even larger, an enormous stellar nursery actively making new stars that burn fiercely, their radiation pushing away the fabric that shaped them, creating shells and pillars of denser materials. These complicated layers create the gorgeous and evocative shapes that so captive astronomers and the general public alike, together with the piles of darkish mud that comprise the Darkish Wolf Nebula.

The Darkish Wolf and Gum 55 reside in Scorpius close to the guts of the Milky Manner, some 5,300 light-years distant. The European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) VLT Survey Telescope at Paranal, Chile, resolved the above picture, which was launched Oct. 31.