BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Mother's Day - An Astronomy Bouquet

Last Sunday was Día de las Madres in Spain and the coming Sunday is Mother's Day in the USA.

Flowers from the florist are popular for Mother's Day. But for really stellar mothers, here is a cosmic floral tribute with links to some dazzling astronomical images.

This is a special little rose that has been to space on the space shuttle. (Credit: NASA) The rose grew in a special chamber as part of a 1998 experiment to study new scents in space. What would happen to the production of essential oils in microgravity? The end result was a surprise — the researchers discovered that the rose had produced an entirely new scent that was definitely out of this world.

The Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra looks rather like a Camelia blossom. Have a look at this actual camelia blossom and tell me what you think.

Here is a splendid cosmic rose, the Rosette Nebula NGC 2237. Alongside the astrophoto, J P Metsavainio (AstroAnarchy) has added a companion piece, an earthly rose.

The Trifid Nebula (Messier 20) is quite flower-like. Not to be confused with the Giant Triffids that attack Earth in the John Wyndham book (and various films made from it)! John Herschel gave the nebula (with one "f") its name because it seemed to have three lobes. The nebula glows a pink color because hot stars energize the hydrogen gas which then gives out red light.

Here is a cosmic rosebud from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The infrared image was given a set of false colors to show temperature differences. Blue is the hottest and orange the coolest. The “rosebud” itself is comparatively cool dust, surrounded by hotter organic molecules (green).

It's Mother's Day in the USA today. I actually wrote my "astronomy bouquet" article for the first Mother's Day without my own mother. So here's good wishes to all who nurture, whether it be human children, other animals, or plants in the garden. And for this day, here is a beautiful image of the Peony Nebula.