A Blooming Rose

Credit: NASA, ESA and Moham­mad Heydari-Malayeri (Obser­va­toire de Paris, France)

Fierce radi­a­tion from N11A’s cen­tral star is shap­ing a del­i­cate rose in space in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope.

Explore the soft glow sur­round­ing the mas­sive star at the heart of the Rose Neb­ula in N11A. The sharp eyes of Hub­ble allow us and astronomers to study in detail the neb­ula, stars embed­ded in its heart, as well as the sur­round­ing lay­ers of hot gas and dust. Zoom into the huge star near the cen­ter of the neb­ula. The stars within this neb­ula are more than 10 times heav­ier than our Sun. Strong stel­lar winds from the newly-born suns have carved an open­ing in the gas and dust. Intense ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion causes the gas in the neb­ula to glow like a neon sign.

This neb­ula lies within a giant star-making fac­tory in the Large Mag­el­lanic Cloud. The LMC, vis­i­ble from the South­ern Hemi­sphere, is a nearby dwarf galaxy to our Milky Way Galaxy about 150,000 light-years from Earth toward the con­stel­la­tion Dorado. Explore a larger piece of this beau­ti­ful cor­ner of the universe.