February 25, 2015
The light from the farthest visible stars set out on its journey long before your first birthday.
The Rosette Nebula in Hydrogen and Oxygen
Birthday · February 25, 2015
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published February 25, 2015. Credit: Arno Rottal (Far-Light-Photography). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
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
Image credit: Arno Rottal (Far-Light-Photography)