Space27 October 2022

Few can contend with a picture of a hole in the fabric of space taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Described as a "cosmic keyhole" by experts, the phenomenon caught by the telescope is what's known as a reflection nebula, part of the debris left behind by the formation of a newborn star.

The star factory of significant size that happens to be the closest of its kind to Earth is 1,350 light-years away.

NGC 1999 reflection nebula
(ESA/Hubble & NASA, ESO, K. Noll)

A dense and cold cloud made up of gas, molecule, and dust was thought to be the source of the gap in the center of the reflection nebula.

There is a cloud of dust surrounding the hole that reflects the light from the V380 star. The reflection nebula name comes from the Latin word for cloud or mist.

At this point, the reason for the huge gap in the middle of the cloud is not known. If we were filming a sci-fi movie, we would say it's the perfect opening for aliens to come through, or an ideal place to place a portal to another Universe.

The picture was taken by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on Hubble in 1999 and was followed up by telescopes. The final image is a group effort from many instruments.

Hubble has been taking pictures of the stars for more than 30 years. We've recently seen it take a beautiful closeup of a star, and a shot of a strange mirror.

The telescope helps scientists deepen their understanding of the Universe, whether that's in finding new asteroids or predicting the death of the Sun.

There are more images from Hubble on the website of the European Space Agency.