How did this hole in space come about? Astronomers still don’t know after ten years!
One of Hubble’s masterpieces is a photo of the NGC 1999 reflection nebula. This space photo has been reprocessed and here is the final result.
NGC 1999 is a so-called reflection nebula. This means that the gas and dust clouds themselves do not glow. Light from a nearby young star is scattered by the nebula’s dust, making the nebula visible. You can compare it to patches of fog around the bulb of a street lamp. The responsible star – V380 Orionis – is visible left of center. This star is 3.5 times more massive than the Sun and has a surface temperature of 10,000 degrees Celsius.
For a long time, astronomers thought the dark spot at the center of NGC 1999 was a spherical cloud, or a place where star formation takes place. In 2010, scientists came to the conclusion that it was not a spherical cloud, but a hole in space. After more than a decade, astronomers still don’t know exactly how this hole came about. An old fashioned mystery!
NGC 1999 is located 1,350 light-years from Earth and is part of the Orion Complex, a group of nebulae, star-forming regions, and star clusters in the constellation Orion. The most famous member of this family is the Orion Nebula. This nebula can be seen with the naked eye on a dark night as a misty patch. Also the famous Horsehead Nebula is part of the Orion complex.
