A stellar nursery hidden in Scorpius, the Dark Tower is a glowing, wind-sculpted cloud of gas shaped by young stars’ radiation.
Astronomers are known for their unusual naming conventions, and the cometary globule GN 16.43.7.01 is no exception. Despite the name, cometary globules have nothing to do with comets — they simply resemble them, with a dense, dusty head and a long, dark tail. This particular globule is captured in an image taken by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile.
Nicknamed the Dark Tower, this celestial structure is located about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion). It is a stellar nursery, containing dense clumps of gas and dust that are gradually collapsing to form new stars.
The Dark Tower’s striking shape is the result of intense radiation from a nearby cluster of young, bright stars positioned off-camera to the upper left. Their powerful energy has sculpted the globule, carving away material and leaving behind its elongated form. The pink glow outlining the structure comes from hot, excited matter illuminated by this relentless stellar bombardment.
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