Christmas tree made of young stars
The stars here are visible as blue and white lights, surrounded by swirls of gas – the “needles” of this star tree.
Located at a distance of 2,500 light years from Earth, the star cluster NGC 2264 resembles a Christmas tree in shape and color. Local stars are a thousand times younger than the Sun – they are “only” from 1 to 5 million years old.
The image, which is composed of images taken by two telescopes, is published on the NASA website.
The stars here are seen as blue and white lights surrounded by swirls of gas—the “needles” of this star tree—with green light in the visible spectrum.
The star cluster NGC 2264 resembles a Christmas tree in shape and color / Photo: NASA
Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical data from astrophotographer Michael Clow's telescope in Arizona were used to create this image. Chandra data…
