Merry Christmas

 

The Universe never ceases to surprise us.

We know eye-shaped nebulae (Helix Nebula), "hand of god" shape and other beautiful shapes, now NASA reveals a "Christmas Tree" nebula, whose technical astronomical name is the cluster NGC 2264.

This collection of stars and gas is between one and five million years old.

NGC 2264 is, in fact, a cluster of young stars - aged between one and five million years - in our Milky Way Galaxy, around 2500 light-years from Earth. The stars in NGC 2264 are both smaller and larger than the Sun, ranging from some with less than a tenth of the Sun's mass to others with around seven solar masses.

This new composite image highlights the resemblance to a Christmas tree through color choices and rotation. The blue and white lights (blinking in the animated version of this image) are young stars emitting x-rays detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Optical data from the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter WIYN telescope at Kitt Peak shows the gas in the nebula in green, corresponding to the tree's "pine needles," and infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows the top stars. and background in white.