A rose by any other name. 🌹 Although this star-studded image may first resemble a skull, it is little more than a trick of the eye. Actually, this nasachandraxray composite image shows a portion of the Rosette Nebula, named for its rose-shaped arrangement, which lies about 5,000 light-years from Earth. Data from Chandra reveals hundreds of young stars clustered in the center of the image and additional fainter clusters on either side. Observations from the Digitized Sky Survey and the KittPeakObservatory reveal the stars lurking inside this delicate cosmic rosebud. These super-hot stars, called O-stars, have blown layers of dust and gas away with their powerful radiation and winds, revealing a cavity of cooler dust. Some of Rosette's O-stars can be seen in the bubble-like cavity; however, the largest two stars in this picture are not in the nebula itself. Recent Chandra observations have revealed that the darker region of Rosette is a nursery for newly formed stars. Within the den...