NASA shows New Year's space Christmas tree
NASA shows what a space New Year's tree looks like (photo: nasa.gov)
NASA astronomers, during their observations, spotted an interesting shape of cosmic clouds that resembled a real Christmas tree. It is located 2,500 light-years away from Earth, but it is very bright and beautiful.
Space reports on what the cosmic Christmas tree looks like.
NASA scientists observed the star cluster NGC 2264, which they named the Christmas Tree Cluster. This name was given because the holiday season is approaching, and Christmas trees are already up in homes and shopping centers in most countries.
The cluster consists of young stars arranged in such a way that it creates the impression of a real festive tree with lights in space.
American astrophotographer Michael Clow recently took a photograph of this cluster. His visible light data was combined with data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
This allowed scientists to capture an image of the star cluster NGC 2264, which resembles a real Christmas tree in space. The image shows not only very bright stars but also clouds of interstellar gas located between them.
Scientists added that this star cluster is located in our Milky Way galaxy, 2,500 light-years away from us. The stars in the cluster range in age from one to five million years, making them young stars by cosmic standards. For comparison, our Sun is nearly 5 billion years old.
The interstellar gas was colored green, while the stars themselves appeared in various shades. Some of the stars in this cluster have masses that are 10 times smaller than the mass of the Sun, while others are up to 7 times more massive.
Earlier, we wrote about 5 asteroids that could potentially collide with Earth.
