The National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s digital gallery hits the 1,000 mark with this view of the comet globule CG4.

Skywatchers Travis Rector and Tim Abbot used the Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory to catch this view of CG4.

Named for their comet-like shape, cometary globules are relatively small, isolated clouds of dust and gas inside our Milky Way galaxy.

CG4 (center) sits about 1,300 light-years from Earth in the Puppis constellation, and sports a head about 1.5 light-years wide and a tail that trails eight light-years aft. The globule contains enough dust and gas to build our Sun several times over.

Although the head of CG4 is opaque, illumination from nearby hot stars cause it to glow. The stars are gradually destroying the globule’s dusty head as it sweeps away tiny, light-scattering particles. CG4 glows red from its charged hydrogen particles.

From our vantage point on Earth, it appears to devour an edge-on galaxy, though looks are deceiving. The galaxy is actually more than 100 million light-years beyond CG4.

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: T.A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage, T. Abbott and NOAO/AURA/NSF.