A celestial phenomena resembling a Christmas tree among the sky is bringing some holiday cheer.
According to NASA, a telescope has taken a picture of NGC 2264, a group of newborn stars that are one to five million years old.
NGC 2264 is located in the Milky Way, almost 2,500 light-years from Earth. It is often referred to as the “Christmas Tree Cluster” because it resembles a cosmic tree with strings of twinkling lights.
NASA claims that NGC 2264 contains stars that are both bigger and smaller than the Sun.
The cluster is seen in the image with its rotation altered by approximately 160 degrees from the astronomer’s standard of North facing upward. As a result, the conical tree’s peak is located close to the top.
NASA claimed that the green gas in the cluster symbolizes the “pine needles” of the tree.
Newly created stars can also be seen in clusters; these stars resemble twinkling Christmas lights.
“Volatile and capable of causing strong flares when captured by X-rays and other types of variations seen through different types of light,” according to NASA, those new stars.
The purpose of the “blinking lights” was to deliberately highlight the locations of the stars in NASA’s X-rays. In reality, the stars are not coordinated.
