Chandra Release - September 6, 2001

Visual Description: Rosette Nebula

This series of Chandra X-ray Observatory images of the Rosette Nebula is a visual representation of an interstellar nebula, showcasing various textures, colors, and forms. The images show a mosaic of the Rosette Nebula region, stretching across four irregularly connected squares from left to right. The colors represent various levels of X-ray energy: red shows low-energy and blue shows high-energy X-rays. There is a group of hot young stars (called an OB association) at the center of the Rosette Nebula and extending southeast (left) into the Rosette Molecular Cloud. The red sources in the Chandra images are dominated by low-energy X-rays and suffer little absorption by the molecular cloud, whereas the blue sources are very young stars still embedded in the gas and dust from which they formed. The diffuse emission visible in the panel on the upper right is due to hot gas produced by the collision of stellar winds from the most massive stars in the nebula.