Where In The Universe #50

By Nancy Atkinson - April 08, 2009 02:46 PM UTC | Site News

Its time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. The goal of this challenge is to test your skills and knowledge of the cosmos. Guess where in the Universe this image is from, and give yourself extra points if you can guess which spacecraft is responsible for the image. Post your guess in the comment section (no links to hints please!) and check back tomorrow for the answer. Good luck!

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below. (Don't peek before you make your guess!)

This image is a zoomed in look at one region of the Rosette Nebula, taken by the Chandra X-ray Telescope, showing a group of hot, young stars. The nebula is about 5,000 light years from Earth, and we see it in the constellation Monoceros. The colors represent various levels of X-ray energy: red shows low-energy (0.5-2 keV) and blue shows high-energy (2-8 keV) X-rays. Chandra took the image back in January of 2001. For more info on the image and the Rosette Nebula, check out the

Chandra website and their description of the image.

Hope you enjoyed this image -- check back next week for another WITU Challenge!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com