Image 7-10
Galactic Ghoul DR 6

A monster lurking behind a blanket of cosmic dust is unveiled in this new Halloween image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Resembling a ghoul with two hollow eyes and a screaming mouth, this masked cloud of newborn stars was uncovered by Spitzer's heat-seeking infrared eyes. The cloud is a nebula called "DR 6" that resides in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. It is home to a cluster of about 10 massive young stars, ranging in size from 10 to 20 times the mass of our Sun. The nebular "eyes" and "mouth" were carved out by intense heat and winds, which shoot outward from the stars.