A beetle crawling in space? Check out this picture captured by Hubble telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope has been providing us with amazing views of our universe for more than three decades. This throwback image from the premium telescope is a dense cloud of gas and dust in the constellation Serpens.

This irregularly-shaped object, called CB 130-3, seems to billow across a field of background stars. The gas and dust making up this dense core affect not only the brightness but also the colour of the background stars, with stars towards the centre of the cloud appearing redder compared to the stars located at the outskirts of this Hubble image.

Astronomers used Hubble to measure this reddening effect and chart out the density of CB 130-3, providing a better understanding of the internal structure of this star-forming region.

Dense cores like CB 130-3 are of particular interest to astronomers because they are the birthplaces of stars. As the dense core collapses, enough mass can accumulate in one place to reach the temperatures and densities required to ignite hydrogen fusion, eventually leading to the birth of a new star. In addition, the study of dense cores also provides a better understanding of the evolution of galaxies and the distribution of matter in the universe.

A compact object teetering on the brink of becoming a fully-fledged star is embedded deep within CB 130-3. Astronomers used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) was used to investigate the environment surrounding this star.

The Wide Field Camera 3 was installed by astronauts during Hubble Servicing Mission 4 in 2009. It is designed to capture high-resolution images of the universe in three broad regions of the spectrum - ultraviolet (UV), Visible and near-infrared (NIR).

WFC3 is capable of observing a wide variety of astronomical objects - from young and extremely distant galaxies to much more nearby stellar systems, to objects within our very own solar system and exoplanets. It has contributed significantly to our understanding of the universe since its installation