Halloween visitor: Ghostly bat nebula haunts the southern sky

Just in time for Halloween, astronomers have spotted a ghostly visitor soaring through the Milky Way – a vast, winged cloud of gas and dust that looks strikingly like a bat in flight. 

Captured by the European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) in Chile, this eerie formation stretches across a patch of sky about four times the width of the full Moon. 

Its glowing red body and dark skeletal wings seem to hover between the southern constellations of Circinus and Norma, roughly 10,000 light-years from Earth.

A stellar nursery in disguise

Behind the spooky shape lies a scene of creation. The “cosmic bat” is a stellar nursery – a dense region of interstellar gas and dust where new stars are born. 

As the infant stars ignite, they release intense radiation that excites the surrounding hydrogen atoms, producing the deep red glow that dominates the image. 

The dark, filament-like veins that trace the bat’s outline are colder, thicker clouds of gas and dust, obscuring the starlight behind them.

These shadowy structures act as the scaffolding for future stars. Within their dense folds, gravity pulls matter together until it collapses into new suns. 

What looks like a celestial phantom is, in fact, one of the universe’s most productive engines for life and light.

Mapping the bat nebula

The nebula’s most prominent features are catalogued in an astronomical list of bright star-forming regions in the southern sky known as the RCW Catalogue. 

The right wing corresponds to RCW 94, while RCW 95 forms the bat’s glowing body. Other parts of the figure remain nameless – mysterious fragments that add to its ghostly charm.

The RCW Catalogue, first compiled in the 1960s, has helped astronomers map hundreds of active star-forming regions across the Milky Way. 

By studying the radiation emitted from these glowing clouds, scientists can learn how massive stars shape their environments and how elements forged in stellar furnaces spread through galaxies.

The telescope behind the magic

This haunting image comes courtesy of the VLT Survey Telescope, a powerful instrument owned and operated by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics and hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert. 

The VST is designed for wide-field imaging, making it ideal for capturing sprawling cosmic structures like this one. The telescope is equipped with OmegaCAM, a 268-megapixel camera built to photograph vast portions of the sky in exquisite detail. 

The combination of precision optics and high-resolution imaging allows astronomers to trace even the faintest wisps of interstellar gas, transforming invisible clouds into dazzling celestial portraits.

The bat nebula’s ghostly glow

To create this view, astronomers combined observations taken through multiple filters sensitive to different wavelengths of light. 

Most of the nebula’s red glow and bat-like shape were captured in visible light during the VST Photometric Hα Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge. 

This ongoing project maps the Milky Way’s disk in remarkable detail, revealing the birthplaces of stars across its spiral arms.

Additional infrared data came from another telescope nearby: the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). 

These observations, part of the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) survey, penetrate deep into the densest parts of the nebula – regions invisible in normal light. 

Infrared light can slip through thick dust, exposing hidden stars and structures that give the “bat” its haunting texture.

Haunting wonders in the dark sky

Both the VPHAS+ and VVV surveys are publicly available, inviting anyone to explore the Milky Way’s hidden corners. 

Together, they form an astronomical treasure trove – billions of pixels chronicling star formation, nebulae, and the delicate architecture of our galaxy.

Images like this one remind us how dynamic and alive the universe really is. Even in its darkest regions, creation continues. 

What looks like a ghost drifting through the stars is, in reality, a cosmic nursery building the next generation of suns. 

ESO noted that both surveys are open to everyone who wants to dive deep in the endless pool of cosmic photographs. “Dare to look closer, and let your curiosity be haunted by the wonders that await in the dark.”

Image Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ team/VVV team

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