The
Heart Nebula ,
IC 1805,
Sharpless 2-190, is some 7500
light years away from
Earth and is located in the
Perseus Arm of the
Galaxy in the constellation
Cassiopeia. It was discovered by
William Herschel on 3 November 1787. It is an
emission nebula showing glowing ionized
hydrogen gas and darker
dust lanes.The brightest part of the nebula (a knot at its western edge) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of the nebula to be discovered. The nebula's intense
red output and its morphology are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula's center. This
open cluster of stars, known as
Collinder 26 or
Melotte 15, contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of our Sun's mass.The Heart Nebula is also made up of ionised Oxygen and Sulfur gasses, responsible for the rich blue and orange colors seen in narrowband images. The shape of the nebula is driven by stellar winds from the hot stars in its core. The nebula also spans almost 2 degrees in the sky, covering an area four times that of the diameter of the full moon.
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