Christmas is here, and so are brand new images of some of the most beautiful holiday-inspired celestial views available in the visible universe, courtesy of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Stunning new imagery of the “Christmas tree cluster,” NGC 2264, was released by the space agency on Dec. 17, 2024, which combines Chandra data with optical data obtained by Arizona based astrophotographer Michael Clow.
Visually rich and very much reminiscent of a Christmas tree decorated with colored lights, Chandra data can be seen in the new imagery in areas where red, purple, blue, and white, can be seen. The optical data obtained by Clow’s Arizona telescope is shown in green, making up the piney “branches” of this celestial evergreen, along with shades of violet that appear in the new image.
“Located about 2,500 light-years from Earth, NGC 2264 is a cluster of young stars between one and five million years old,” NASA recently said in a statement accompanying the release of the image. “The stars are seen here as blue and white lights surrounded by swirls of gas—the ‘pine needles’ of the tree—with green representing light in the visible spectrum.”
This cluster of stars, believed to be less than five million years old, is located approximately 2,500 light-years from Earth, comprising stars of varying sizes in relation to our own nearest star, the Sun.
As far as the cluster’s uncanny resemblance to a Christmas tree, the new imagery released by NASA was enhanced for this purpose, with the aid of a few color adjustments and a rotation of the image to match the likeness of a festive yuletide evergreen.
Previous images of the Christmas tree cluster incorporated additional optical data, collected with the National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak, which similar to the optical data provided this year by Clow’s telescope, reveals the greenish gases in the surrounding nebula.
As an added touch, NASA has produced animations in the past that enhanced the brightness of the X-ray emissions of several of the young stars in the cluster, based on detections made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, gives the cluster the appearance of blinking Christmas lights.
However, the Christmas Tree Cluster isn’t the only region of the cosmos that reminds us of the Christmas holiday. Let’s take a look at a few other festive celestial displays that are sure to help get our readers in the spirit of the season.
Hubble’s Celestial Snow Globe
An equally festive cosmic display can be located within the constellation Virgo, where seven million light years from Earth, astronomers spotted a celestial snow globe with help from the Hubble Space Telescope.
The colorful cosmic bubble is actually a dwarf galaxy that astronomers categorize as irregular, since it does not possess the typical spiraling or elliptical shape of most galaxies, a formation NASA compares to a “brightly shining tangle of string lights than a galaxy.”
Similar to the “Christmas tree cluster,” image filtration helped to bring out the holiday-themed coloration visible in the image, where the reddest areas are likely to be composed of glowing interstellar hydrogen molecules produced by hot energy from stars. You can read more about Hubble’s Christmas Globe here.
A Space Snowman in the Kuiper Belt
Also in our roundup of festive holiday celestial objects is one of the most peculiarly-shaped objects anywhere in the Kuiper Belt, which resembles a curious space-bound snowman.
On January 1, 2019, NASA’s New Horizons space probe made its flyby of the primitive and strangely-shaped trans-Neptunian object, 486958 Arrokoth. Astronomers call the asteroid a cold classical Kuiper belt object, and among its many mysteries are its distinctive “snowman” shape, as well as the unusual mound structures that cover its surface.
Arrokoth’s odd appearance arises from the pair of conjoined minute planets, or planetesimals, from which it is formed. It was discovered in June 2014 during a search for potential targets for New Horizons and has remained mysterious even since the spacecraft obtained imagery of the object that revealed the unusual 5-kilometer-long mound structures that today are known to cover Wenu, the object’s larger lobe.
Arrokoth, like the beautiful Christmas tree cluster and other festive celestial wonders we have reviewed, makes for another fitting addition to this year’s special roundup of celestial stocking stuffers, one aimed at helping to bring a bit of cheer to you all this holiday. From all of us here at The Debrief, we’d like to wish you a delightful holiday, and season’s greetings as we head into an exciting new year in exploration of all the scientific wonders our universe has to offer.
This is an updated version of an article originally published on December 21, 2023.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.