NASA telescopes have turned a cluster of stars into a Christmas tree – Science and IT

If you look at NGC 2264, you will quickly understand why this star cluster is called the “Christmas Tree Cluster”.

Astrophotographer Michael Clough took a picture of the star cluster NGC 2264, and these data were combined with X-ray data from NASA's observatory. This made it possible to create a wonderful image, similar to a Christmas tree made of stars.

This is reported by Space.com.

The star cluster NGC 2264 has been the subject of work by astrophotographer Michael Clough, who captured its image from Arizona in November. Its optical data were combined with X-ray data from NASA's Chandra Observatory to create this beautiful Christmas tree-like image of NGC 2264, which shows not only the stars themselves, but also the gas clouds between them.

NGC 2264 is located in the Milky Way, 2,500 light years from Earth. And the stars in it are very, very young – they are from 1 to 5 million years old. For comparison, our middle-aged Sun…