The European Southern Observatory has just released this image of the NGC 1788 nebula. NGC 1788 is in what the Observatory calls “a dark and often neglected” corner of the Orion constellation and is home to a bunch of upstart young stars aged only a million years or so each.

In a statement, ESO says “NGC 1788 is a reflection nebula, whose gas and dust scatter the light coming from a small cluster of young stars in such a way that the tenuous glow forms a shape reminiscent of a gigantic bat spreading its wings.”

It’s a great picture, but a bat? Really? If Bruce Wayne saw this in the sky, would he actually come running?

Images: NGC 1788 = ESO / bat = Wikipedia / bat signal = photo by Si1very via Flickr under creative commons