The Rosette Nebula (also known as Caldwell 49) is an

H II region An H II region or HII region is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized. It is typically in a molecular cloud of partially ionized gas in which star formation has recently taken place, with a size ranging from one to hundreds ...

located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the

Monoceros Monoceros (Greek: Μονόκερως, "unicorn") is a faint constellation on the celestial equator. Its definition is attributed to the 17th-century Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius. It is bordered by Orion to the west, Gemini to the north, ...

region of the

Milky Way Galaxy The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...

. The

open cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and ...

NGC 2244 NGC 2244 (also known as Caldwell 50 or the Satellite Cluster) is an open cluster in the Rosette Nebula, which is located in the constellation Monoceros. This cluster has several O-type stars, super hot stars that generate large amounts of radiati ...

(Caldwell 50) is closely associated with the nebulosity, the

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

s of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter. The nebula has been noted to be having a shape reminiscent of a human skull, and is sometimes referred to as the "''Skull Nebula''." It is not to be confused with

NGC 246 NGC 246 (also known as the Skull Nebula"The Night Sky", ''Astronomy Now'', Oct 2008. or Caldwell 56) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Cetus. It is the first known planetary nebula to have a hierarchical triple star system at its center ...

, which is also nicknamed the "''Skull Nebula''."

Description

The complex has the following

New General Catalogue The ''New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars'' (abbreviated NGC) is an astronomical catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. The NGC contains 7,840 objects, including galaxies, star clusters and ...

(NGC) designations: *NGC 2237 – Part of the nebulous region (Also used to denote whole nebula) *NGC 2238 – Part of the nebulous region *NGC 2239 – Part of the nebulous region (Discovered by

John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wor ...

) *

– The open cluster within the nebula (Discovered by

John Flamsteed John Flamsteed (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, ''Catalogus Britannicus'', and a star atlas called ''Atlas Coe ...

in 1690) *NGC 2246 – Part of the nebulous region The cluster and nebula lie at a distance of 5,000

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

'' 'Cambridge Deep Sky Companions - The Caldwell Objects' '', S.J. O'Meara & P. Moore, Cambridge University Press, (2002) and measure roughly 130 light years in diameter. The

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...

from the young stars excites the

atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...

s in the nebula, causing them to emit radiation themselves producing the emission nebula we see. The

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

of the nebula is estimated to be around 10,000

solar mass The solar mass () is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and black holes. It is approximately equal to the mass ...

es.

A survey of the nebula with the

Chandra X-ray Observatory The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources 1 ...

has revealed the presence of numerous new-born stars inside optical Rosette Nebula and studded within a dense molecular cloud. Altogether, approximately 2500 young stars lie in this star-forming complex, including the massive

O-type stars An O-type star is a hot, blue-white star of spectral type O in the Yerkes classification system employed by astronomers. They have temperatures in excess of 30,000 kelvin (K). Stars of this type have strong absorption lines of ionised helium, s ...

HD 46223 and HD 46150, which are primarily responsible for blowing the ionized bubble. Most of the ongoing star-formation activity is occurring in the dense molecular cloud to the south east of the bubble. A diffuse

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

glow is also seen between the stars in the

bubble Bubble, Bubbles or The Bubble may refer to: Common uses * Bubble (physics), a globule of one substance in another, usually gas in a liquid ** Soap bubble * Economic bubble, a situation where asset prices are much higher than underlying fundame ...

, which has been attributed to a super-hot plasma with temperatures ranging from 1 to 10 million K. This is significantly hotter than the 10,000 K plasmas seen in

HII regions An H II region or HII region is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized. It is typically in a molecular cloud of partially ionized gas in which star formation has recently taken place, with a size ranging from one to hundred ...

, and is likely attributed to the shock-heated winds from the massive O-type stars. On April 16, 2019 the Oklahoma Legislature passed HB1292 making the Rosette Nebula as the official state astronomical object. Oklahoma Governor

Kevin Stitt John Kevin Stitt (born December 28, 1972) is an American businessman and politician serving as the 28th governor of Oklahoma. A member of the Republican Party, he began his first term as governor in January 2019 and was reelected to a second t ...

signed it into law April 22, 2019.

References

External links

Rosette Nebula (SEDS)
* ttp://www.nightskyinfo.com/archive/rosette_nebula NightSkyInfo.com – Rosette Nebula*

Astronomy Picture of the Day Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is a website provided by NASA and Michigan Technological University (MTU). According to the website, "Each day a different image or photograph of our universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written ...

Dust Sculptures in the Rosette Nebula
– 2007 June 6

– 2009 December 2

– 2010 February 14
Slooh Videocast on Rosette NebulaRosette Nebula from the Netherlands
(

2012 March 12)
Rosette Nebula at Constellation GuideCreative Commons Rosette Nebula, Data Download & Processing Guide
{{Portal bar, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System H II regions NGC objects Monoceros (constellation) 049b Sharpless objects Star-forming regions

Description

See also

References

External links