Christmas Celebrated Even in Space: NASA Releases ‘Christmas Tree’ Image

Christmas is celebrated even in space! The U.S. space agency has published an image of the NGC 2264 star cluster, which resembles a Christmas tree.

NASA researchers constructed the image using data from two telescopes: the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation's Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO (WIYN) telescope, giving it a green hue. They also utilized infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey to bring the stars to life with brilliant blue and white dots. The image was also rotated by 160 degrees from its original northern point to make it appear more tree-like.

The nebula, a cloud of dust and gas, is located about 2,500 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Monoceros. Many of the stars forming NGC 2264 are both smaller and larger than the Sun, with some having less than 10% of the Sun's mass. Discovered in the 1780s by William Herschel, the star formation spans approximately seven light-years.

New stars are forming around it, gradually eroding the nebula over millions of years. There are numerous nebulae that often resemble terrestrial objects or animals, such as jellyfish, owls, and even the trunk of an elephant. The NGC 6302 nebula, located in the Scorpius constellation, is known as the Butterfly Nebula for its gas clouds, which resemble wings.