2023-12-23 18:00:00
NASA (the federal agency responsible for the civil space program in the United States) is giving us an early gift from the stars. On her website and social networks, she revealed an unusual image of a group of stars forming a shining Christmas tree, captured using three telescopes. Its real name, a little less festive, NGC 2264, is in reality a cluster of young stars, between one and five million years old. This cluster is located in our Milky Way, nearly 2,500 light years from Earth.
How is it possible ?
In reality, it is a composite image (an assembly of photos), which means that NASA modified the colors and the rotation of the photo, in order to reinforce the resemblance to a Christmas tree. In another animated version of the image, several of the stars flash artificially, like fairy lights. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shared this other animated photo.
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The image was obtained thanks to the combination of several telescopes, named Chandra, WIYN which captured the gas of the green nebula, and the infrared telescope of the Two Micron All Sky Survey 2Mass, which was able to capture the white stars.
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