By Amit Malewar 18 Dec, 2024
Collected at: https://www.techexplorist.com/cosmic-wreath-christmas-tree-clusters-space/94844/
Wreaths have long been a symbol of life, death, and rebirth. It’s interesting that one of the best places for astronomers to learn about how stars are born, live, and die looks like a giant holiday wreath.
The stars in NGC 602 are unique because they have fewer heavier elements than our Sun and other stars in the Milky Way. This makes NGC 602 a snapshot of stars as they were billions of years ago when the universe was younger. The conditions in this star cluster help scientists understand how stars were born and evolved in the early universe.
A new image of NGC 602 combines data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope. The image shows a dark, ring-like shape around the cluster, made up of dense dust clouds. The colors orange, yellow, green, and blue represent the dust observed by the Webb telescope.
The green colors and soft, feathery edges of the ring cloud make it look like a wreath of evergreen branches. Splashes of red, which represent X-rays, add shading and help highlight the different layers within the wreath-like cloud.
The image is filled with bright, colorful lights in blues, golds, whites, oranges, and reds, representing the cluster’s stars. Some lights sparkle with sharp, star-like spikes, while others shine with a soft, glowing light. Looking closely, you’ll see that many glowing dots have spiral shapes, meaning they are distant galaxies.
In the X-ray data from Chandra, shown in red, scientists see young, massive stars sending powerful rays of light into space. These rays are produced by strong winds from the young stars scattered throughout the cluster. The glowing red areas in the image show the overlapping X-rays from thousands of younger, smaller stars in the cluster.
In addition to this cosmic “wreath,” another star cluster known as the “Christmas tree cluster” has also been studied. NGC 2264 cluster comprises young stars between one and five million years old. In comparison, our Sun is about 5 billion years old. NGC 2264 is much closer to Earth at about 2,500 light-years away. A new image of NGC 2264 combines Chandra’s X-ray data with optical images captured by astrophotographer Michael Clow using a telescope in Arizona in November 2024.
In this image, delicate green clouds shaped like cones look like evergreen trees. Small specks of white, blue, purple, and red light, which are stars within the cluster, are scattered across the cloud, turning it into a festive, cosmic Christmas tree!
These discoveries give astronomers exciting new insights into how stars are born, live, and die in space and how the universe has changed over billions of years.
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