NGC 2244

High-Res

Object: NGC 2244

The Rosette itself has a number of NGC designations contained within it, they being NGC 2237, 2238, 2239, 2244 and 2246. The open cluster in the center of the Rosette Nebula (upper right hand corner in the image) is NGC 2244, a relatively young grouping at 4 million year old. With a diameter of about 130 light years across and located 4500 light-years from Earth it contains up to 11,000 solar masses of material, making it one of the largest such nebulae in the Milky Way galaxy.

Herbig-Hero 1 is a protostellar jet identified by an arrow in the above image. This collimated jet is produced by the rapid rotation of an accretion disc surrounding a forming star which leads to a flow of ionized gas emanating outward and perpendicular to the disc. When this flow slams into the surrounding interstellar medium it reveals itself as a bright emission source.