A mysterious and faint nebula, cometary globule CG4, looks like a threatening creature in a new image from European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), according to a press release from the observatory.

Many comet-like objects were seen in 1976 by the UK Schmidt Telescope in Australia in a glowing plot of gas called the Gum Nebula. They were labeled cometary globules, but they had nothing in common with actual comets, according to ESO. The cometary globules were marked by dusty heads and long tails which pointed away from a supernova remnant, Vela, located in the middle of the Gum Nebula.

The cometary globules were not far away, but due to their faintness, were hard to spot. CG4, is also nicknamed "God's Hand," by astronomers and it has been photographed at 1,300 light-years away, situated in the constellation Puppis, also called The Poop, or Stern.

With a head diameter of 1.5 light-years and a tail length of 8 light-years, CG4 is considered a small cloud. The beastly head is only visible due to the light of nearby stars. The radiation from the stars is eating away at the head of the gas cloud, but the cloud is still gaseous enough to make Sun-stars. According to ESO, CG4 is actively making stars now.

How cometary globules got their form is still a mystery to astronomers. An exploding supernova is one possibility. Another is ionizing radiation from massive OB stars (a short-lived star) and stellar wind, which would create the infancy of a cometary globule, known as an "elephant trunk" (named for the shape).

Astronomers still need to find out the mass, density, temperature and velocities of the gas cloud particles in order to know more, according to ESO.