24 October 2022
A cosmic keyhole
© ESA/Hubble & NASA, ESO
It’s not every day that you can peek through a keyhole in the cosmos, but Hubble did just that. A new photo of the reflection nebula NGC 1999 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released by NASA and the ESA on 24 October shows a peculiar portrait of the swirling cloud of gas and dust. The nebula is a relic of a star’s formation – V380 Orionis, which can be seen in the centre of the image. The most distinctive feature of the photo, however, is the dark void in the heart of the nebula shaped like a keyhole.