Brief by Shorts91 Newsdesk / 06:34am on 20 Dec 2023,Wednesday Science
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a festive portrait of distant young stars assembled into a formation remarkably resembling a Christmas tree. Located 2,500 lightyears away, the stellar nursery dubbed "NGC 2264" houses fledgling stars spanning just one-tenth to seven times the mass of our Sun. NASA creatively enhanced the data into a cosmic holiday scene, adding color and synchronizing the stars' blinking activity. In reality, these dramatic variations result from flares, hotspots, and gas flows—byproducts of the volatile early stellar lifecycle. As another year filled with Webb's groundbreaking cosmic imagery draws to a close, this sparkling rendering offers one more wonder just in time for the holidays—a Christmas tree cluster ornamenting our vast Milky Way.
