For Halloween, here is our Top 10 of the scariest and… tragic astronomical photos!

Is it the Universe that is playing on us, or rather our brain, trained to recognize shapes since our earliest childhood? This phenomenon is called pareidolia. In this top 10, we will discover nebulae, stars, asteroids and phenomena that are as terrifying as they are ephemeral…

In 10th position: LDN34, the largest bat in the Universe: 12 light years long!

It is 1400 light years from us in the Serpentary (surprising?), but measures 12 light years in extent! It is a dark nebula, that is to say an immense dense molecular cloud which blocks the light of the stars forming within it.

In 9th position: NGC 246, a giant skull lit by a dead star!

It is a so-called “planetary” nebula in the direction of the Whale, in reality a solar-type star has died and expelled its layers of gas. But two other stars are inside this strange structure about 2 light years away.

In 7th position: the cosmic hand, MSH1552, could grasp the entire Solar System!

It is an undead star which is responsible for this nebular hand: a massive star died after having exploded, and its stellar residue is a neutron star, an ultra-rapidly rotating pulsar. This “hand” is in fact a set of X-rays produced by the pulsar.

In 6th position: the incredible Sprites, or Leprechauns, very ephemeral, whose mystery was recently unraveled.

It is an atmospheric phenomenon linked to storms. Bubbles, or pockets of ionized air (nitrogen) are projected above storm clouds. They occur between 40 and 150 kilometers above sea level. The mechanism behind Sprites has only recently been understood, as it is difficult to photograph and therefore difficult to see.

We are entering the top 5 of what the Universe, NASA and astronomers are offering us that is scary for Halloween!

In 5th position: what would a Halloween be without a beautiful witch? Here is NGC 1909 lit by a massive, blue star.

It is a reflection nebula: it is in fact very diffuse and illuminated by the massive star Rigel in the constellation Orion.

In 4th position: the Black Widow Nebula (yet red) weaves its web in sleeping space…

It was photographed by the Sptizer space telescope, therefore in infrared, in 2005. It is formed by young and massive stars visible in the “belly” of the spider (yuck).

In 3rd position: the Ghost of Cassiopeia (IC 63). It will haunt the Universe for a few thousand years!

In the Universe, even ghosts are not eternal! These clouds are destined for certain disappearance because of the star Gamma Cassiopea, off-camera, which gradually disperses them…

In 2nd position: the asteroid Skull passed near Earth at 125,000 km/h for Halloween in 2015!

This one, though, looked like he was doing it on purpose. This small space mountain of approximately 450 m made an approach to Earth on October 31, 2015, only 1.27 lunar distance from us! It's an Apollo-type asteroid, beautiful as a dead god.

In 1st position: the giant galaxy-devouring worm! This photo is incredible: it's a Halloween story in itself…

The story that this photo seems to tell would be one of the greatest tragedies of the Universe: a galaxy of hundreds of billions of suns, even more planets and therefore potentially life and civilizations would soon be wiped out?

Yes, this galaxy seems set to be swallowed by a cosmic worm of enormous dimensions! However, the two objects are not at all on the same scale: there is a fortuitous alignment there which fools our brain. Bok's worm-like globule is a cradle of stars (clearly visible in the second photo), and it measures “only” 1.5 light-years in diameter by 8 light-years long and the galaxy d The background is 145 million light years away! But the scene is splendid, marvelous and terrifying at the same time. A magnificent winner of our top 10.

A HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO EVERYONE!