The Rosette Nebula
February 14, 2011
I picked this photo because I saw it very fitting that it was one of the objects for this week. One of the two constellations of the week is Monoceros. The Rosette Nebula happens to be located in this desolate constellation where no bright stars are visible. The Rosette Nebula is a beautiful nebula that is home to an open cluster of fairly new stars. These stars are approximately 4 million years old, young in the eyes of a star. The gas and dust around the stars is slowly being pushed away from the cluster because of the emanating solar wind. The actual nebula though, is an emission nebula, meaning that the stars are exciting the gas around them causing the gas to glow. The nebula is a HUGE marvel. It measures 100 light years across! That's 588 trillion miles! The nebula can be seen with a small telescope, so maybe next time I'm out with mine, I try and look for it.
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