Merry Christmas! Here’s a composite picture and video of NGC 2264, also called the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” that reveals the form of a cosmic tree with the glow of stellar lights.
Based on NASA: NGC 2264 is, actually, a cluster of younger stars — with ages between about one and 5 million years outdated — in our Milky Method about 2,500 light-years away from Earth. The celebrities in NGC 2264 are each smaller and bigger than the Solar, starting from some with lower than a tenth of the mass of the Solar to others containing about seven photo voltaic plenty.
This new composite picture enhances the resemblance to a Christmas tree by means of selections of shade and rotation. The blue and white lights (which blink within the animated model of this picture) are younger stars that give off X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Optical knowledge from the Nationwide Science Basis’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak reveals gasoline within the nebula in inexperienced, akin to the “pine needles” of the tree, and infrared knowledge from the Two Micron All Sky Survey reveals foreground and background stars in white. This picture has been rotated clockwise by about 160 levels from the astronomer’s normal of North pointing upward, in order that it seems like the highest of the tree is towards the highest of the picture.
Superb ‘Christmas Tree Cluster’ in area captured by a number of observatories
