The Rosette Nebula in Hydrogen and Oxygen

The Rosette Nebula is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers -- but it is the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros, some 5,000 light years away, the petals of this rose are actually a stellar nursery whose lovely, symmetric shape is sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young stars . The stars in the energetic cluster , cataloged as NGC 2244 , are only a few million years old, while the central cavity in the Rosette Nebula , cataloged as NGC 2237, is about 50 light-years in diameter. The nebula can be seen firsthand with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Unicorn ( Monoceros ). Follow APOD on: Facebook , Google Plus , or Twitter