'Christmas Tree Cluster' of stars dazzles from space
The star cluster resembles a traditional Christmas tree and appears green.
A “Christmas tree cluster” of stars is captivating astronomers and stargazers alike.
NASA on Tuesday released a composite image of the star cluster, which they said “enhances the resemblance to a Christmas tree through choices of color and rotation,” including showing “gas in the nebula in green, corresponding to the ‘pine needles’ of the tree.”
According to the space agency, the cluster, officially known as NGC 2264, is a group of young stars in the Milky Way that is approximately 2,500 light years away from Earth.
Some of the young stars are smaller than the sun’s mass, but others are up to seven times the solar mass of the sun, NASA said.
The “Christmas tree cluster” produces X-rays, which were then detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, leading to the capture of the composite image.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory has been orbiting the Earth for 23 years, since July 1999. It’s one of NASA’s four so-called “Great Observatories” – along with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory – launched into space between 1990 and to 2003, and one of 17 – including the James Webb Space Telescope, launched two years ago this month – currently in space.