© NASA/STScI Digitized Sky Survey/Noel Carboni
There’s a witch in space about 900 light years away. Plucked straight from a storybook, the Witch Head Nebula, also known as IC 2118, bears a striking resemblance to a hook-nosed sorceress. Its eerie, blue hue is the result of the neighbouring blue supergiant star, Rigel, and cosmic dust and gas reflecting blue wavelengths of light much more efficiently than other wavelengths.