Looking rather like a cosmic feline foot protruding outwards from among the stars, NGC 6334 is also known as the Cat's Paw Nebula or the Bear Claw Nebula, making it one of many nebulae that look like animals.
The Cat's Paw Nebula an emission nebula about 90 lightyears across and is located 5,500 lightyears away, yet still resides within our Milky Way galaxy. It can be seen from Earth in the Scorpius constellation.
The Cat's Paw Nebula is often imaged glowing bright red due to the presence of ionised hydrogen atoms located within the cosmic cloud.
This is a region of space known as a stellar nursery due to the high rate of stars being born there, including giant stars as massive as up to 10 times the mass of our own Sun.
Below is a gallery of some of the best images of the Cat's Paw nebula sent to us by BBC Sky at Night Magazine readers and astrophotographers from across the world.
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