Christmas Tree Cluster: Looks like Christmas is coming to space too. On the 19th (local time), NASA released a photo of a star cluster that looks exactly like a Christmas tree on its official website. NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” is located 2,500 light-years from Earth in the Milky Way and was captured in this image using the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
The released photo is an image rotated 160 degrees clockwise so that the top of the tree is upside down and also shows different wavelengths of light captured by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A short video released alongside the photo showed twinkling blue and white stars adding to the Christmas atmosphere.
The stars that make up this green tree-shaped cluster are young stars that formed about 1 million to 5 million years ago. Their sizes also vary, with some reported to be smaller than our galactic Sun and some larger.
The ‘tree-shaped’ green gas in the nebula was observed by the 0.9mm WIYN telescope at the Kitt Peak National Optical Astronomical Observatory in the United States, and the bright white stars across the image were observed by the ‘2 micron telescope’. From 1997 to 2001. It was discovered by infrared observations of the ‘Two Micron All Sky Survey’.
NASA classifies young stars, including those found in this cluster, as “highly unstable” and “shine brightly when observed under various prisms, including X-ray light.” Scientists hope that research on young stars in the ‘Christmas Tree Cluster’ will allow them to closely observe the rapidly changing growth process of stars.
