Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Do you ever look up at the night sky and feel like someone, or something, may be looking back at you? This Halloween image from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope may convince you that you are right. Dont expect to see these cosmic eyes without a face if you search the night sky with your own binoculars or telescopethey are completely cloaked from view in visible light. They can only be found by telescopes, like Spitzer, that can see infrared light.

Lurking in the constellation of Aquila (Latin for eagle), these celestial eyeballs are actually vast bubbles of dust and gas associated with the formation of new stars. Spitzer found that our Milky Way is full of these dusty bubbles. Contributions from nearly 80,000 citizen scientists have helped catalog 2,600 such objects for the Milky Way Project. The two shown here have the lengthy designations MWP1G043734+001170 and MWP1G043775+000606, or N89 and N90 for short.

However, very few of these star-forming bubbles give the creepy impression that they are staring back at you.

Learn more about these bubbly stellar nurseries in this NASA/JPL news release:

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/news/2198-ssc2019-16-Spitzer-Spots-a-Starry-Region-Bursting-With-Bubbles

What kind of otherworldly creature do you think would be hiding behind this ghostly gaze? Show the world by drawing your own galactic ghoul using our web tool. Take a screen capture and share your creations on social media using the hashtag #NASAHalloween.

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/design-a-ghoul

Provider: Spitzer Space Telescope

Image Source: https://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/image/ssc2020-17a-something-out-there-is-watching-you

Curator: Spitzer Space Telescope, Pasadena, CA, USA