Interactive Overview
Slider Interactive: An image showing different wavelengths of light given off by the Rosette Nebula. Below the caption is a horizontal slider bar with four labeled stops and a solid white circle. Dragging the white circle right and left along the slider bar causes the image, labels, and caption to change. The change occurs gradually as one image, along with its associated caption and labels, fades out and the next fades in. A toggle button to the upper right of the image turns the image labels off and on. Some labels are in the form of text with arrows pointing to specific features in the image. Other labels are graphic overlays.
Slider Stops
From left to right, the slider stops are labeled: Infrared, Visible, Visible (Detail), and Ultraviolet.
Summary of Slider Stops
Sliding left to right reveals the following:
- “Infrared” stop shows the infrared light that is emitted by the glowing dust of the Rosette Nebula.
- “Visible” stop shows the different types of gas, as well as young stars within the Rosette Nebula’s cavity. This is the initial image shown when the interactive is loaded.
- “Visible (Detail)” stop shows a single trunk of dense dust magnified to show its detailed structure and the stars growing within.
- “Ultraviolet” stop shows stars as fuzzy orbs of different sizes.
Stop 1: Infrared
Image Description: Infrared
An infrared wavelength image of the Rosette Nebula. The nebula contains two concentric layers of gas and dust. The inner layer contains dust that appears red from the center to about half the length of the image, and dust that appears green from that point to the edge. The green dust forms a series of peaks and ridges with pillar-like protrusions that point towards the center of the nebula. Toward the top left, top right, and bottom right, the nebula becomes more diffuse, giving way to the black background of space. Throughout these clouds of gas and dust are many young, bright blue stars of different sizes. There are also a few yellow stars spread around the bottom left of the nebula, with a particularly bright yellow star displaying an eight-pronged diffraction pattern.
Labels: Infrared
There are three text labels. An area in the dust that appears red above the image’s center at 12 o’clock is labeled “Larger dust grains.” A bright blue star to the left of center at 9 o’clock is labeled “Young stars.” An area toward the bottom left of the nebula in the dust that appears green is labeled “Smaller dust molecules.”
Caption: Infrared
Stars forming within the Rosette Nebula heat layers of surrounding dust, giving them an infrared glow.
Stop 2: Visible
Image Description: Visible
A visible wavelength image of the Rosette Nebula. The center of the nebula contains a cavity filled with blue stars of different sizes and diffuse blue gas. This cavity is surrounded by a layer of yellow gas, which itself gives way to another concentric circle layer of red gas. The gas mixes in between, creating an orange gas. Column-like pillars of denser gas and dust point towards the central star cluster, forming ridges dotted with smaller dark globules at the edges of the layers. A particularly prominent darker ridge in the yellow layer curves from about 12 o’clock to 3 o’clock. At about the 1 o’clock position, a long pillar with a two-pronged end, which looks a little like a wrench, extends from the ridge towards the center. Toward the corners of the image, the gas becomes more diffuse, giving way to the black background of space. White stars of different sizes and are spread throughout the gas in the nebula.
Labels: Visible
There are three text labels. The hole in the gas in the center of the image is labeled “Star cluster.” An area slightly away from the center of the nebula in the yellow gas at 5 o’clock is labeled “Glowing oxygen gas.” An area in the red dust above the image’s center at 11 o’clock is labeled “Glowing hydrogen gas.”
Caption: Visible
A cluster of young stars erodes the surrounding gas and dust, creating a central cavity within the Rosette Nebula.
Stop 3: Visible (Detail)
Image Description: Visible (Detail)
The same view of the visible wavelength Rosette Nebula slide with an overlaid image. The colors of the nebula from the Visible slide have been muted to focus on a dense segment of dust, which has been highlighted by a dotted white box at the center-right of the image. This is a small segment of the prominent dust ridge. This box connects to a magnified image of this area to the left. The pulled-out image shows an upside-down, dark gray V that looks like thick smoke. This structure extends from just below bottom right all the way up to the top left corner and back down toward the bottom left. Behind the dark gray on the left side, from the bottom center to top right, there is dust that looks like arced claw marks that appears in light orange and yellow. The background at bottom right is hazier, the blues are covered in semi-transparent orange wisps, making a few sections take on green hues. In the top left, the background is bluer. There are a few bright red and purple stars scattered along the left half, most toward the top. The largest star is at left-center, just at the edge. It is red and has four diffraction spikes.
Labels: Visible (Detail)
There are two text labels, both placed on the magnified image. A small red area at about 2 o’clock is labeled “Young star.” An area at about 11 o’clock in the thick black dust is labeled “Dense dust.”
Caption: Visible (Detail)
The densest parts of the dust resist erosion, resulting in unique structures.
Stop 4: Ultraviolet
Image Description: Ultraviolet
An ultraviolet image of the Rosette Nebula, which appears black and white. There are several white stars of different sizes, with the biggest concentrated toward the center. The nebula appears as faint cloud spread throughout the image, with similar structures to those seen in the visible light view.
Labels: Ultraviolet
There are three text labels and a graphical overlay. A white star in the center is labeled “Massive young stars.” A faintly cloudy area at about 1 o’clock is labeled “Faint nebula glow.” This cloudy area is surrounded by a white dashed line that is labeled “Nebula’s edge” at the top left.
Caption: Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet light and stellar winds from young stars up to 50 times the mass of the Sun sculpt the nebula.
