There is a giant bat signal in the sky to mark Halloween (we are not kidding)

Somewhere between the constellations Circinus and Norma — about 10,000 light-years from our comfortably oxygenated rock — the universe decided to have a bit of Halloween fun. Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have captured what looks like a cosmic bat, wings outstretched, gliding through interstellar darkness. And before Gotham’s conspiracy theorists start calling Bruce Wayne, let’s be clear: this one’s made of hydrogen, dust, and pure astronomical coincidence. The image, released on October 31, was snapped by the 268-megapixel Omegacam on ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert. It shows vast red clouds of gas glowing eerily, sculpted by ultraviolet radiation from a cluster of newborn stars — the kind that think supernovae are a personality trait. The