Galactic worm eats up the Milky Way — or so it seems

A giant worm appears to be violently attacking a spiral galaxy somewhere in space. The red monster’s gaping mouth is a light-year and a half wide and measures more than 14 trillion kilometers.

This “worm” is CG4 (Comet Globe 4), a system of oddly shaped clouds of gas and dust located in the southern constellation Puppis. The galaxy isn’t being devoured, as this object, ESO 257-19, is actually located 100 million light-years behind the worm-shaped nebula. Secular views are deceptive here.

Nevertheless, the constellation of CG4 and ESO 257-19 continues to capture the imagination of many astronomers. Salad Working Groupshort for shared remote astrophotography. The team, made up mainly of Italian astronomy enthusiasts, saw a giant cosmic “sandworm,” an all-consuming predator on the planet Arrakis in science fiction movies. duneThey were so inspired that they chose to do this as a joint photography project. They each invested a few dozen euros and rented observing time on a commercial telescope installation. Chilean Vision Located in the southern Atacama Desert of Chile. It’s cloudless most of the year, and if you’re unlucky, you can get your money back.

The raw images were taken with two telescopes at the El Sauce Observatory during the night of March 14-15, 2023. Shara members will then receive the raw files and can vote for the best images.

The resulting photo has now been nominated Astronomy Photographer of the Year Competition from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, U.K. The winner will be announced in September.

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