I mention all that because of this amazing photo of the planetary nebula Sharpless 2-188, located in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was captured by the astronomers Travis Rector and Heidi Schweiker using the Kitt Peak 4-meter telescope in Arizona. Sharpless 2-188, as its nebula designation suggests, is comprised of interstellar dust and gas. And, looking at the image of that distant nebula captured from here on Earth, the astronomer Phil Plait made a neatly pareidoliac discovery: Sharpless 2-188's gaseous winds, as captured in the picture, gusted in just such a way as to be reminiscent of a fox. Curved into a semi-circle. With its tail aaaaaalmost touching its forehead.

The cosmic configuration out in Cassiopeia resembled, in other words, this:

In part, it's worth noting, the Firefoxiness of the nebula is due to human choices made in the creation of the image itself: Rector and Schweiker, Plait points out, used two filters in the image, one showing hydrogen gas (orange) and the other showing oxygen (cyan). There's an orange-blue bias, essentially, built into the image. The nebula is also Firefoxily bright in its lower-left segment because its central star is quickly moving in that direction.

Which is to say the obvious: that the universe is not, actually, Firefoxphilic. If you're looking at this using Chrome or Safari or IE ... carry on. But the Firefox-in-the-Skies image is a nice reminder of how many things there are still to see in the universe, of how many familiar sights are left to be found in the foreign worlds we're witnessing for the first time, with a clarity we could previously only imagine. The ancients read their stories into the skies; we read our corporate logos into them. But it's the same game. It's ultimately human eyes, looking up into clouds, and making sense of them in the only way we know how.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.