On October 31, 2024, the Dark Wolf Nebula was captured in a remarkable 283-megapixel image by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.
This nebula is located in the constellation Scorpius, approximately 5,300 light-years from Earth, near the center of the Milky Way. The image covers an area of the sky equivalent to four full moons, yet it is part of a larger nebula known as Gum 55.
Dark nebulae are cold clouds of cosmic dust that are so dense that they obscure the light from stars and other objects behind them. Unlike other nebulae, they do not emit visible light; instead, the dust grains absorb visible light and allow longer wavelengths, such as infrared radiation, to pass through. Astronomers study these icy dust clouds because they often contain newly forming stars.
The image spectacularly showcases how the Dark Wolf stands out against the bright star-forming clouds behind it. These colorful clouds are primarily composed of hydrogen gas and glow in reddish hues due to intense ultraviolet radiation from newly born stars within.
While some dark nebulae, like the Coal Sack Nebula, are visible to the naked eye and hold cultural significance for Indigenous peoples, the Dark Wolf Nebula is not. This image was created using data from the VLT Survey Telescope, owned by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and located at the ESO Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of Chile. The telescope is equipped with a specially designed camera for mapping the southern sky in visible light.
The image was compiled from photographs taken at different times, each using a filter that allowed a different color of light to pass through. All images were captured during the VST Photometric Ha Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+), which has studied around 500 million objects in our Milky Way.
Surveys like this enhance scientists' understanding of the life cycle of stars within our galaxy, and the data obtained is made publicly available through the ESO scientific portal.