Rho Ophiuchi is a star and the cloud around it, one of the most colourful regions of the sky, where blue and golden dust surrounds an infant star cluster.
At a glance
| type | nebula |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 453 light-years (139 pc) |
| its light left it | 453 years ago |
| size in the piece | about 16 light-years acrossmodel |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with. Model marks a property of the piece’s galaxy model rather than a measurement.
About Rho Ophiuchi
The star Rho Ophiuchi is a hot multiple system that lights the dust around it into a blue reflection nebula. Nearby, the red supergiant Antares lights its own dust into a yellow haze, and glowing hydrogen adds red. Dark lanes of the Ophiuchus cloud run through the whole field.
Behind the dust, in the dense core of the cloud, is one of the youngest and nearest star clusters known, made of protostars and very young stars visible only in infrared and X-rays. The globular cluster M4 shares the same patch of sky but lies far beyond, unrelated to the cloud.
What you see in the piece
In visible light the star, its nebula and the dark lanes sit together near Antares; the infrared band shows the young cluster hidden in the core.
Questions
How far away is Rho Ophiuchi?
The Rho Ophiuchi region is about 453 light-years (139 pc) from the Sun.
Why is the Rho Ophiuchi region so colourful?
Dust reflects the blue light of Rho Ophiuchi and the yellow light of Antares, glowing hydrogen adds red, and dark clouds block the stars behind.