Rosette Nebula

Rosette Nebula — nebula, explore its interactive 3D model in Cosmoscope.

Explore Rosette Nebula in an interactive 3D view of space. Inspect its astronomical data and the observations or reconstructions behind the model.

A rose of glowing hydrogen around the young star cluster NGC 2244, whose fierce light and winds have hollowed out its centre. From Earth’s side it matches the photograph; fly round it to see its 3D shape, which is a model.

Type

Star-forming nebula (NGC 2237, 2238, 2239 and 2246)

Distance

About 5,200 light-years

Size

About 1.3° across our sky — some 120 light-years

Heart

The young cluster NGC 2244, whose light and winds have cleared its centre

Shown here

Digitized Sky Survey 2 photograph, stars removed, on one continuous 3D volume: from Earth it matches the photograph; from elsewhere a thick, hollow shell

3D shape

Illustrative: a shell 23 to 62 light-years from its centre (Celnik 1985), a little flattened and tilted (Wareing et al. 2018; Dent et al. 2009); its dark globules in front

Image credit

Digitized Sky Survey 2: STScI/NASA, Palomar Observatory/Caltech and UK Schmidt Telescope plates

Explore Rosette Nebula in 3D

Rosette Nebula is placed in three-dimensional space using catalogue coordinates and an adopted astronomical distance. Rotate and zoom to explore the model. Stellar surfaces, gas structure and dust depths may be reconstructed or illustrative, as described in its facts; this is not live imagery from a telescope.