The star-forming region known as NGC 3324 glows red in a newly released picture from the European Southern Observatory in Chile.
Intense radiation from hot young stars inside the nebula not only causes surrounding the gas to glow but has also carved out a distinctive hollow in the giant space cloud.
Due to the cavity’s resemblance to a human face in profile, one nickname for the NGC 3324 region is the Gabriela Mistral Nebula, after the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet