Cone Nebula and Golden Rectangles

The Cone Nebula is located about 2,600 light-years from Earth in the constellation Monoceros and is so named because of its apparent shape. The cone's shape comes from a dark nebula consisting of cold molecular hydrogen and dust in front of a faint emission nebula containing hydrogen ionized by S Monocerotis, the brightest star of NGC 2264, of which the nebula is part. This image shows the upper 2.5 light-years of the 7 light-year-long Cone Nebula. Photo credit: Hubble Space Telescope. Post a comment.

A golden rectangle is a rectangle whose side lengths are in the golden ratio, one-to-phi, that is, approximately 1:1.618. A distinctive feature of this shape is that when a square section is removed, the remainder is another golden rectangle, that is, with the same proportions as the first. Square removal can be repeated infinitely, which leads to an approximation of the golden or Fibonacci spiral.