Ahead of the celebration, NASA releases a fresh image of their cosmic Christmas tree. The night sky is the perfect place to hunt for extra sparkle during the holidays. NASA recently released this amazing photo of an extraterrestrial Christmas tree.
The image displays NGC 2264, a group of young stars like a Christmas tree with green pine needles and blue and white decorations. The cluster, sometimes referred to as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” is situated roughly 2,500 light-years from Earth.
Data from several telescopes was combined to make the image. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has identified the X-rays that the blue and white stars are generating. The nebula encircling the cluster is the green gas in the background.
The National Science Foundation-funded WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak made the observation. The Two Micron All Sky Survey, which employed infrared light to scan the whole sky, is the source of the white stars in the background and foreground
Additionally, the image was rotated by roughly 160 degrees clockwise, making the top of the tree point upward. This is not how astronomers normally point with the North pointing upward.
The Christmas tree cluster contains stars that are between one and five million years old. While some of them are enormous, many times larger than our sun, others are minuscule, barely a hundredth of our sun’s size.
Unlike other stars that are getting closer to the conclusion of their billion-year lives, these stars have a lengthy life ahead of them.
Though the Christmas tree cluster is sadly too small to be seen with the unaided eye, the sky is still filled with festive pyrotechnics. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Ursid meteor shower, which peaks on December 23 and 24, can produce up to 10 shooting stars every hour.
