These Scary Things in Space Will Haunt Your Dreams

Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (University of California, Berkeley), M. Clampin (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), M. Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

This evil eye-shaped nebula, formally named Fomalhaut , strikes an eerie resemblance to the fearful Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings series. In the books, Tolkien described the eye as being “rimmed with fire… watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened up on a pit, a window into nothing.”