An Impossible Hunt

A fiery dragon

hunting for a galaxy

so far far away.

These striking images captured by the European Southern Observatory with the VLT telescope register what seems to be a hunt of truly cosmic proportions. A dark cloud of dust and gas, known as the cometary globule CG 4, appears to be reaching out to gobble up the spiral galaxy ESO 257-19. In reality, they are separated by a chasm of 100 million light-years.

CG 4 is located in the constellation Puppis, about 1,300 light-years from Earth. It is a type of Bok globule — a dense cloud of dust within which a new generation of stars can form. The globule's "head" spans roughly 1.5 light-years across, while its dusty "tail" stretches about 8 light-years. CG 4 is hypothesized to have been spherical, but a nearby supernova explosion has likely "blown out" its distinctive tail. Just like a sphere of glass blown into a vase. Now, what we see is a mysterious fragment of a stellar nursery, caught in the illusion of a hunt for a distant galaxy.

Absolutely breathtaking.