Here is a composite image of the Rosette nebula, located about 5,000 light-years from Earth. This region of ionized hydrogen is famous for rapid star formation.
To create the image, we used:
— X—ray data (red) from NASA’s Chandra Space Observatory;
- Optical data (purple, orange, green and blue) from the Digital Sky Survey and the Kitt Peak National Observatory.
X-ray data allows us to see hundreds of young stars grouped in the center of the nebula, and more sparse clusters on the sides.