NASA’s Cosmic Christmas Tree

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the cosmos… NASA was lighting up the sky.

“This composite image shows the Christmas Tree Cluster. The blue and white lights are young stars that give off X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Optical data from the National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak shows gas in the nebula in green, corresponding to the “pine needles” of the tree, and infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows foreground and background stars in white. This image has been rotated clockwise by about 160 degrees from the astronomer’s standard of North pointing upward, so that it appears like the top of the tree is toward the top of the image.” (Photo: Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: T.A. Rector (NRAO/AUI/NSF and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA) and B.A. Wolpa (NOIRLab/NSF/AURA); Infrared: NASA/NSF/IPAC/CalTech/Univ. of Massachusetts; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare & J.Major)

As the festive spirit envelops the world in a shimmering embrace, there’s an additional twinkle in the holiday sky this year — courtesy of NASA’s relentless pursuit of cosmic exploration.

“Sprightly Stars Illuminate ‘Christmas Tree Cluster,’” announced NASA excitedly on December 19, 2023, with the publication of the above photograph.

It was the latest cosmic postcard captured by a cadre of new NASA missions and fanciful high-tech devices.

“This new image of NGC 2264, also known as the ‘Christmas Tree Cluster,’ shows the shape of a cosmic tree with the glow of stellar lights,” says NASA of this newest image. “NGC 2264 is, in fact, a cluster of young stars — with ages between about one and five million years old — in our Milky Way about 2,500 light-years away from Earth. The stars in NGC 2264 are both smaller and larger than the Sun, ranging from some with less than a tenth the mass of the Sun to others containing about seven solar masses.”

This is a composite view of irregular galaxy NGC 6822 that combines data from Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments. Together, the images show a dense field of stars with greenish-yellow clouds of gas and dust billowing across it. Stars litter the scene. They largely resemble white specks, but some of the stars are a bit larger than the rest and resemble snowflakes with their visible diffraction spikes. The clouds are largely patchy and wispy, but denser areas glow yellow. Bright galaxies of various shapes and sizes shine in red through the gas and stars. (Photo: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope)

With each passing discovery and breakthrough, NASA has become an unparalleled gift to humanity…