“The Quito Astronomical Observatory in Quito, Ecuador, reminded me of a setting for an unwritten Isabel Allende novel,” Keith Carter recalls. “I saw two men through an open door in what looked like a library. They were discussing a drawing of the solar system. Every now and then they would point to the small orrery on a nearby table.” In his poetic style, Carter photographed the orrery—a mechanical model of the solar system—against an astronomical drawing. Carter’s dreamlike image conveys all the mystery of the cosmos and conjures the human desire to understand the unknowable universe.