The hubble space telescope of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA, for its acronym in English) has captured what appears to be a smoke-covered keyhole between stars, which experts have also identified as a cosmic “keyhole”.
The image corresponds to a “reflection nebula” and this lock was found in the constellation of Orion, about 1,350 light years from Earth.
According to the report posted on the website of Independent in Spanish, reflection nebulae are only visible when illuminated from within, according to a publication by ESA blog. In this case, it is a newborn star, V380 Orionis, which provides that light.
Basically, the young star acts like a lamp in a smoky room, illuminating the surrounding clouds of gas and dust, which are materials left over from the star’s formation.
What is the origin of the cosmic keyhole?
Scientists still don’t understand the origin of the void in the lock on the nebula, according to the ESA. When the Hubble Telescope first took an image of the phenomenon in 1999, it was unclear whether what appeared to be the keyhole was an actual hole through the nebular material or some mass of cold gas and dust.
1/ You would need a big key to unlock this peculiar picture of the week from Hubble. This image shows NGC 1999, a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion. NGC 1999 is composed of detritus left over from the formation of a newborn star.
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— HUBBLE (@HUBBLE_space) October 24, 2022
Subsequent observations from ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory, a space telescope with more powerful optics than Hubble that flew from 2009 to 2013, confirmed that the keyhole is, in fact, a hole that provides a view of space on the other side of the nebula.
While the new James Webb Space Telescope continues to amaze scientists and the public with new space images from its unprecedentedly powerful optics, Hubble remains active on its missions and provides important science images.