Spooky 'dark wolf' seen in space snap

Image source, PA Media

Image caption, Is that you, Professor Lupin?

Take a look at this amazing photo by the team using the giant telescopes at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile.

It shows what's known as the Dark Wolf Nebula.

5,300 light-years from Earth, it looks like a black hole in space in the shape of a wolf.

But it's actually a cloud of space dust in which stars are being created.

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Image source, Getty Images

Image caption, The picture was taken by the giant radio telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

Nicknamed the Dark Wolf Nebula, the cloud is in the Scorpius constellation near the middle of the Milky Way.

This image takes up an area in the sky equivalent to four full Moons, but is actually part of an even larger nebula called Gum 55.

Some people viewing the image might even think it looks like a werewolf, with hands reaching out.

Image source, PA Media

Image caption, If you look closely, you can see a few scary looking shadows in the dust clouds!

The new image, captured in a 283-million-pixel image by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile, shows in detail how the dark wolf stands out against the glowing star-forming clouds behind it.

The colourful clouds are built up mostly of hydrogen gas and glow in red tone because of the radiation from the newborn stars within them.