Lynds Dark Nebula 43
Sure, Halloween is an astronomy holiday . But astronomers always enjoy scanning the heavens for spook-tacular galaxies , stars, and nebulae. This favorite is item number 43 from the Beverly Lynds 1962 Catalog of Dark Nebulae , fondly known as the Cosmic Bat nebula . While its visage looks alarmingly like a scary flying mammal, Lynds Dark Nebula 43 is over 12 light-years across. Glowing with eerie light, stars are forming within the dusty interstellar molecular cloud that is dense enough to appear in silhouette against a luminous background of Milky Way stars. Watch out . This Cosmic Bat nebula is a mere 400 light-years distant toward the serpent-bearing constellation Ophiucus.