The famous Rosette Nebula has an evacuated central cavity formed from the stellar winds ejected from the 2-6 million-year-old co-distant and co-moving central star cluster NGC 2244. However, with upper age estimates of less than 110,000 years, the central cavity is too young compared to NGC 2244 and existing models do not reproduce its properties. A new proper motion study herein using Gaia data reveals the ejection of the most massive star in the Rosette, HD46223, from NGC 2244 occurred 1.73 (+0.34,-0.25)Myr (1$σ$ uncertainty) in the past. Assuming this ejection was at the birth of the most massive stars in NGC 2244, including the dominant centrally positioned HD46150, the age is set for the famous ionised region at more than ten times that derived for the cavity. Here, we are able to reproduce the structure of the Rosette Nebula, through simulation of mechanical stellar feedback from a 40M$_{\odot}$ star in a thin sheet-like molecular cloud. We form the 135,000M$_{\odot}$ cloud from thermally-unstable diffuse interstellar medium under the influence of a realistic background magnetic field with thermal/magnetic pressure equilibrium. Properties derived from a snapshot of the simulation at 1.5Myr, including cavity size, stellar age, magnetic field and resulting inclination to the line of sight, match those derived from observations. An elegant explanation is thus provided for the stark contrast in age estimates based on realistic diffuse ISM properties, molecular cloud formation and stellar wind feedback.
We report the results of Faraday rotation measurements of 23 background radio sources whose lines of sight pass through or close to the Rosette Nebula. The Rosette Nebula is an excellent candidate for studies of super bubbles associated with young star clusters. We made linear polarization measurements with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA) at frequencies of 4.4GHz, 4.9GHz, and 7.7GHz. We are able to establish a background rotation measure in this part of the sky due to the Galaxy of +147 rad m^-2. Sources whose lines of sight pass through the nebula have an excess rotation measure of…
We have investigated tiny molecular clumps in the Rosette Nebula. Radio observations were made of molecular line emission from 16 globulettes identified in a previous optical survey. In addtion, we collected images in the NIR broad-band JHKs and narrow-band Paschen beta and H2. Ten objects, for which we collected information from several transitions in 12CO and 13CO were modelled using a spherically symmetric model. The best fit to observed line ratios and intensities was obtained by assuming a model composed of a cool and dense centre and warm and dense surface layer. The average masses deriv…
Stellar kinematics is a powerful tool for understanding the formation process of stellar associations. Here, we present a kinematic study of the young stellar population in the Rosette nebula using the recent Gaia data and high-resolution spectra. We first isolate member candidates using the published mid-infrared photometric data and the list of X-ray sources. A total of 403 stars with similar parallaxes and proper motions are finally selected as members. The spatial distribution of the members shows that this star-forming region is highly substructured. The young open cluster NGC 2244 in the…
Tracing star formation across the Rosette nebula using deep Spitzer imaging
University of St Andrews（圣安德鲁斯大学）；Universidade de Lisboa（里斯本大学）；Univ. Bordeaux（波尔多大学）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) – Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo（意大利国家天体物理研究所（INAF）- 巴勒莫天文台）
The Rosette Nebula is an HII region ionized mainly by the stellar cluster NGC 2244. Elephant trunks, globules, and globulettes are seen at the interface where the HII region and the surrounding molecular shell meet. We have observed a field in the northwestern part of the Rosette Nebula where we study the small globules protruding from the shell. Our aim is to measure their properties and study their star formation history in continuation of our earlier study of the features of the region. We imaged the region in broadband near-infrared (NIR) JsHKs filters and narrowband H2 1-0 S(1), P$β$, and…
We present a new large-scale survey of J=3-2 12CO emission covering 4.8 square degrees around the Rosette Nebula. Approximately 2000 compact clumps are identified, with a spatially-invariant power law mass distribution index of -1.8. Most of the inner clumps show velocity gradients of 1-3 km/s/pc, directed away from the exciting nebula. The gradients decrease with distance from the central O stars, and are consistent with a photoionised gas acceleration model, assuming clump lifetimes of a few 10^5 yrs. However, in one clear case, the observed near-constant velocity gradient is difficult to ex…
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Roman Sees Where You Are: Predicting Exoplanet Transit Yields in the Rosette Nebula with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
University of Wisconsin–Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）；University of Michigan（密歇根大学）；Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）
Planck has mapped the polarized dust emission over the whole sky, making it possible to trace the Galactic magnetic field structure that pervades the interstellar medium (ISM). We combine polarization data from Planck with rotation measure (RM) observations towards a massive star-forming region, the Rosette Nebula in the Monoceros molecular cloud, to study its magnetic field structure and the impact of an expanding HII region on the morphology of the field. We derive an analytical solution for the magnetic field, assumed to evolve from an initially uniform configuration following the expansion…
The Monoceros Loop (SNR G205.5+0.5) is a large shell-type supernova remnant located in the Rosette Complex region. It was suggested to be interacting with the Rosette Nebula. We aim to re-examine the radio spectral index and its spatial variation over the Monoceros SNR, and study its properties of evolution within the complex interstellar medium. We extracted radio continuum data for the Monoceros complex region from the Effelsberg 21 cm and 11 cm surveys and the Urumqi 6 cm polarization survey. We used the new Arecibo GALFA-HI survey data with much higher resolution and sensitivity than that …
Supernova remnants (SNRs) embody the information of the influence on dust properties by the supernova explosion. Based on the color indexes from the 2MASS photometric survey and the stellar parameters from the SDSS$-$DR12$/$APOGEE and LAMOST$-$DR2$/$LEGUE spectroscopic surveys, the near-infrared extinction law and the distance of the Monoceros SNR are derived together with its nearby two nebulas -- the Rosette Nebula and NGC 2264. The distance is found at the position of the sharp increase of interstellar extinction with distance and the nebular extinction is calculated by subtracting the fore…
(Abridged) In this work, we study the 2.8x2.6 deg2 region in the emblematic Rosette Nebula, centred at the young cluster NGC 2244, with the aim of constructing the most reliable candidate member list to date, determining various structural and kinematic parameters, and learning about the past and the future of the region. Starting from a catalogue containing optical to mid-infrared photometry, as well as positions and proper motions from Gaia EDR3, we apply the Probabilistic Random Forest algorithm and derive membership probability for each source. Based on the list of almost 3000 probable mem…
As part of the ongoing effort to characterize the low-mass (sub)stellar population in a sample of massive young clusters, we have targeted the ~2 Myr old cluster NGC 2244. The distance to NGC 2244 from Gaia DR2 parallaxes is 1.59 kpc, with errors of 1% (statistical) and 11% (systematic). We used the Flamingos-2 near-infrared camera at the Gemini-South telescope for deep multi-band imaging of the central portion of the cluster (~2.4pc^2). We determined membership in a statistical manner, through a comparison of the cluster's color-magnitude diagram to that of a control field. Masses and extinct…
Tiny, dense clumps of sub-solar mass called globulettes form in giant galactic HII regions. The young central clusters compress the surrounding molecular shells which break up into clumps, filaments, and elephant trunks that interact with UV light from the central OB stars. We study the nature of the infrared emission and extinction in the shell and globulettes in the Rosette Nebula (RN) and search for associated newborn stars. We imaged the northwestern quadrant of the RN in the near-infrared (NIR) through JHKs and narrow-band H2 1-0 S(1), Pbeta and continuum filters. NIR images were used to …
For many years feedback processes generated by OB-stars in molecular clouds, including expanding ionization fronts, stellar winds, or UV-radiation, have been proposed to trigger subsequent star formation. However, hydrodynamic models including radiation and gravity show that UV-illumination has little or no impact on the global dynamical evolution of the cloud. The Rosette molecular cloud, irradiated by the NGC2244 cluster, is a template region for triggered star-formation, and we investigated its spatial and density structure by applying a curvelet analysis, a filament-tracing algorithm (DisP…
There is a growing community of astronomers presenting evidence that the pulsar wind nebula 3C58 is much older than the connection with the historical supernova of A.D 1181 would indicate. Most of the strong evidence against a young age for 3C58 relies heavily on the assumed distance of 3.2 kpc determined with HI absorption measurements. I have revisited this distance determination based on new HI data from the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and added newly determined distances to objects in the neighbourhood, which are based on direct measurements by trigonometric parallax. This leads to a ne…
We report on sensitive new 1.4-GHz VLA radio observations of the pulsar wind nebula G21.5-0.9, powered by PSR J1833-1034, and its environs. Our observations were targeted at searching for the radio counterpart of the shell-like structure seen surrounding the pulsar wind nebula in X-rays. Some such radio emission might be expected as the ejecta from the <~ 1000 yr old supernova expand and interact with the surrounding medium. We find, however, no radio emission from the shell, and can place a conservative 3-sigma upper limit on its 1-GHz surface brightness of 7 x 10^-22 W/m^2/Hz/sr, comparable …
A pulsar wind nebula inside a supernova remnant provides a unique insight into the properties of the central neutron star, the relativistic wind powered by its loss of rotational energy, its progenitor supernova, and the surrounding environment. In this paper, we present a new semi-analytic model for the evolution of such a pulsar wind nebula which couples the dynamical and radiative evolution of the pulsar wind nebulae, traces the evolution of the pulsar wind nebulae throughout the lifetime of the supernova remnant produced by the progenitor explosion, and predicts both the dynamical and radi…
Pulsars are rapidly-rotating neutron stars born out of the death of stars. A diffuse nebula is formed when particles stream from these neutron stars and interact with the ambient medium. These pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) are visible across the electromagnetic spectrum, producing some of the most brilliant objects ever observed. The launch of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in 2008 has offered us an unprecedented view of the cosmic gamma-ray sky. Using data from the LAT on board Fermi, we search for new gamma-ray-emitting PWN. With these new observations, we vastly expand the number of PWN o…
Classical, large scale 3D MHD simulations of interacting pulsar wind nebulae
Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC)（空间科学研究所）；Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC)（加泰罗尼亚空间研究学院）；Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA)（加泰罗尼亚高级研究制度）
