Nightshade Nebula

"'A massive void in the sky that humanity feared for millennia - now, through science, being relegated to nothing more as a black nuisance in the nights across the Coalition.' - anon. astronomer" The Nightshade Nebula, designated NEB-001 by the Coalition Astrocartography Service, is a large absorption nebula that spans portions of space to the southwest of the Coalition of Congressional Republics, with the closest permanent settlement to the nebula lying within the Gabriel star system. Incarnating in human history and mythology as a great spanning darkness in the sky - a physical representation of abysses such as the Auronean mythical realm of Tartarus - the advent of space exploration has yielded the Nebula's rather clean-handed nature. Even so, the Nightshade Nebula is still feared by colonists due to the fate of the lost colony of Apophis.

An anomalous signal by the name of 22X-B9 has been detected emanating from somewhere behind the Nightshade Nebula. It is currently being investigated by the Interstellar Coalition Space Navy's Space Exploration and Discovery Corps instead of the civilian Coalition Congressional Space Agency due to the "seemingly methodical nature of the signal", which may be a sign of xenosophonts and intelligent alien life.