This eerie, dark silhouette is a cometary globule designated GN 16.43.7.01. Despite their name, cometary globules have nothing to do with comets, beyond having a similar shape to a dusty head with a tail. Cometary globules are a variation of Bok globules, which are isolated pockets of dense, dark dust and gas inside which conditions are ripe for star formation. In the case of this cometary globule, winds of radiation from a group of luminous stars just out of shot are sculpting the Bok globule into a tail-like shape. Whereas Bok globules were discovered by the Dutch–American astronomer Bart Bok in the 1940s, their cometary globule variation was first seen only as recently as 1976.
This image of GN 16.43.7.01 was taken by the VLT Survey Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. The Dark Tower, as it is also known, is found 5,000 light years away in the constellation of Scorpius, the Scorpion.
