Outer Space Romance! Behold The Rose-Shaped Nebula

In my sci-fi travels, I span the cosmos. Sometimes, I’m a near-omniscient hero named Totally Omniscient guy. And in those travels, in my mind, within my dreams, I can do totally cool stuff. Like give an entire nebula shaped like a rose to Mrs. Caffeine Powered. She fawns, and faints, and then gives me quite a pleasant kiss on the cheek.

Behold the Rosette Nebula:

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The Rosette Nebula is located between 4,500 and 5,000 light-years away in the constellation of Monoceros, which translates to the Unicorn. The nebula’s less flowery name is NGC 2237, and it’s home to one of the brightest star clusters in the night sky. NASA explains:

At the center of the flower is a cluster of young stars called NGC 2244. The most massive stars produce huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation, and blow strong winds that erode away the nearby gas and dust, creating a large, central hole. The radiation also strips electrons from the surrounding hydrogen gas, ionizing it and creating what astronomers call an HII region.

A rose-shaped nebula? God damn. Pretty romantical, innit? We see what we want to see, us humans. And sometimes, nestled within something as pretty as the cosmos, we see roses.