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 What appears to be a ghostly hand reaching across the universe toward a defenseless spiral galaxy in a new telescope image is a rarely seen cosmic phenomenon, according to astronomers. The Dark Energy Camera captured a stunning image of “God’s Hand,” a cometary globule 1,300 light-years from Earth in the Puppis constellation. The camera is mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Cometary globules are a type of Bok globule or dark nebula. These isolated cosmic clouds are filled with dense gas and dust, which are surrounded by hot, energetic material. Cometary globules are unique because they have extended tails, like those seen on comets — but that’s the only cometlike thing about them. Astronomers still don’t know how cometary globules come to exist in such distinctive structures. Historically, it’s also been hard for scientists to detect faint clouds. The new image of the glowing red hand-like feature showcases CG 4,...

 I was lucky enough to catch an awesome glimpse of the northern lights from my own home this month when the biggest solar storm to reach Earth in two decades made auroras visible at latitudes much farther south than usual. Despite living in the light-filled streets of central London, my smartphone camera picked up a green haze and a pulsing sheet of purple and pink light. Capturing the moment was an unforgettable experience and one that I had thought would involve expensive travel to the northernmost reaches of our planet. The storms that create spectacular auroras such as those I witnessed originate from the sun’s dynamic magnetic field, an astrophysical enigma that scientists this week came closer to unraveling. Solar update Figuring out how the sun’s magnetic field works will help scientists improve the forecasting of space weather, which dazzles night sky watchers but can disrupt GPS and communication satellites. The sun’s looping magnetic field lines, which form a tangled we...