Astrophotographer Greg Meyer has captured an evocative image of a shadowy nebula drifting through interstellar space, which conjures the image of a cosmic giraffe galloping through a sea of stars.
Meyer's photo reveals the smoke-like mass of LDN 1245 — a vast collection of interstellar dust known as a dark nebula. Dense, opaque knots of material inside these cold clouds absorb and scatter background starlight, blocking the glow of more distant stars in the Milky Way's spiral arms, causing them to appear as dramatic silhouettes hanging in deep space.
